Australian Tapestry Workshop

Rather than the end the year review, we are just leaving this beauty here. Our major tapestry work in progress is looking rather gorgeous, front and back. Further details here: https://lnkd.in/gzBeZEiv Thank you to the skilful weavers, artists, colleagues and supporters of ATW for making this joy happen. Two images show a large scale tapestry in progress with bright colours.

Announcing our 2025 Artists in Residence We are delighted to announce the 2025 cohort of leading artists selected from a competitive national and international field for our coveted six annual residencies. Each year, Artists in Residence immerse themselves in our vibrant studio – exchanging knowledge and skills with our tapestry weavers and engaging with local communities through the exhibition of their works, talks and workshops. Kayla Powers (USA)Hancock Fellowship Kayla is a place-based artist and naturalist who makes ecologically focused textile art with and about the living world. She employs the traditional practices of foraging, dyeing, weaving, and stitching to explore the common threads of our shared humanity with the intention of creating connections - to the earth, to craft, and to each other. Dr. Deanne Gilson (Wadawurrung) Regional Artist Residency Deanne is a proud Wadawurrung woman, deeply connected to her ancestral Country in Ballarat. With a career spanning over forty years, she has built an award-winning, multi-disciplinary art practice that encompasses painting, sculptural installation, fashion and textile design, photography, and drawing. Sophie Hones (Gamilaroi Yinarr) First People's Residency Sophie is a Gamilaroi Yinarr artist based in Tamworth, NSW. She has been creating textile art professionally since 2017. Sophie's work responds to her immediate environment, finding and exploring hidden beauty on Gomeroi country through colour and texture. Sangeeta Sandrasegar (VIC) Sangeeta works within a research-based practice, building narratives across projects in various forms spanning, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. Her artworks consolidate postcolonial thinking, exploring life in Australia and the relationship between migrant communities and homelands, using her biographical experience as a lens and position of perspective. Jacqueline Stojanović (VIC) Jacqueline is a multidisciplinary artist, weaver and educator who works with historic and contemporary textile processes. The impetus of Stojanović’s expanded practice is grafted to her belief in weaving as an ancient carrier of culture. She continues the tradition of hand weaving within a contemporary framework to memorialise the cultural practice of her parents respective homelands in former-Yugoslavia and Vietnam. Rosie O’Brien (VIC) APA Residency Rosie is an emerging artist working on paper, digital animation and textiles. She draws inspiration from the rich colour and form found in botany, approaching the work with a delicate intimacy. The vibrant use of pattern and placement of soft vessel-like flowers demonstrates her sensitive and observant style. Thank you to all our funders of these residencies. We look forward to hosting these exceptional artists in 2025 and welcome everyone to follow their projects and visit their talks, workshops and events. Image shows six headshots arranged in two rows of three.

Hats off to Art Gallery of South Australia for Radical Textiles and the glorious display of art from across Australia and the world. The exhibition design, public programming and attention to detail in curation is extraordinary. We are particularly delighted by the respectful billing of the collaborators in the tapestry we have on display there, showing the intertwining of thinking between artist/designer, artist/weaver and ATW's team in the colour lab and studio. Thank you to Leigh Robb for visiting us earlier this year to create this deep understanding and see our role in this glorious cacophony of textile creativity. The show is on till March so there is no excuse not to get to Adelaide this summer! https://lnkd.in/g3SKqmKc One of two images shows a finely woven tapestry in pinks and greys and the other shows the exhibition label which spells out the collaborators in the work.

We are delighted to see the launch of Utzon Music 2025: a celebration of human curiosity and discovery for the beautiful Utzon Room. The beauty of ATW's tapestry for the Sydney Opera House, comes alive with this series of concerts curated by Melbourne virtuoso Genevieve Lacey. You can commune with the joyful colours of 'Homage to Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach' designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon. Read more about the monumental tapestry, spanning 2.67 x 14.02m, woven in 2003 by Cheryl Thornton, Pamela Joyce, Milena Paplinska and Chris Cochius here: https://lnkd.in/gcPFZbAv and book tickets if you can find your way to Sydney Opera House: https://lnkd.in/gbub4Gh3 Image shows a room full of people listening to a classical music group sitting opposite a colour, full wall tapestry.

Congratulations to Guan Wei for the prestigious Creative Australia Award for Visual Arts 2024. This major award acknowledges the achievements of an artist who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to Australian art. Guan Wei created the beautiful Treasure Hunt tapestry in 2018 at ATW with weavers Chris Cochius, Pamela Joyce, Jennifer Sharpe and Cheryl Thornton. The 1x 4m tapestry explores the impacts of globalisation through the legend of admiral Zheng He. Shifting levels of detail in the design provided a challenging opportunity for ATW weavers to work with two different warp sets. You can read more about the design here: https://lnkd.in/gqdR7x3j And about the Creative Australia Award recipients here: https://lnkd.in/gZeKxTne Guan Wei has been living and working between Beijing, China and Sydney Australia since 1989. He is an iconic figure in the Australian contemporary art scene and critically acclaimed internationally. Through his art, he reflects upon the human condition as we engage with critical contemporary issues, such as climate change, questions of identity, migration and exile. A detailed image of a woven coastal landscape shows islands, clouds and mythical creatures swimming in a bright blue sea.

"Whilst at ATW I had the most amazing opportunity to work with Heather in the dye lab to dye my materials from plants that I work with on Country. " We speak to Artist in Residence, Tammy Gilson, (Wadawurrung) about her practice, inspirations and time at the ATW. Follow the link to see the incredible colours that were created with the bark from Tammy's cultural burning practice and other plants from her country. https://lnkd.in/gQkKTn2q Image shows a woman in close up, smiling as she weaves with twine.

“The challenge and also the joy of tapestries is they're enormous and they can very often have two or three points of narrative highlight with subsidiary details in the background. So I think this is often very confusing for a modern audience that expects to be able to look at an image and immediately grasp what's going on. With a tapestry, you have to take much more time. You have to let your eye explore the tapestry and enjoy the multiple details.” ATW tapestries do not tend to be narrative, but they do contain an immersive load of visual information and are distinctive viewing pleasures that are exciting to discover. Whilst not all of us can make it to Texas to see the epic Battle of Pavia medievil tapestries, we can enjoy this really interesting conversation between "Tapestry Tom", Thomas Campbell, the Director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Art Newspaper's Alexander Morrison. We love this apprecation of the art of tapestry that includes lively exchanges such as, “It does feel cinematic. I mean, I think it's safe to say it's chaotic as well...And the longer you look at the imagery, the more that comes out. I mean, the little details like a woman carrying a dog and there's a monkey climbing out of its cage. And then you have, you know, brutal murder.” https://lnkd.in/ghESNS4J From The Week in Art: Renaissance special: Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael in Florence, drawings and tapestries, 8 Nov 2024 https://lnkd.in/gR9kwxEx

Another week, another workshop! This time, we are opening up additional spaces for a new iteration of our popular beginners' weaving workshops. There will be two consecutive Weaving Lab workshops on Saturday 16th November and the presence of our expert weavers in each will enable us to host a range of weaving experience; from absolute beginner to enthusiastic amateur. We will be encouraging wild creativity and imagination in the use of colour, texture, pattern and shape and look forward to hosting all the people of all ages and backgrounds. Come along if you are curious! Image shows people sitting around a tabletop covered in colourful weaving materials.

Tammy Gilson gave a small group of workshop participants an experience of her fibre artwork practice on the weekend. Tammy is a proud Wadawurrung woman and award-winning weaver. She is Artist in Residence at ATW currently and her String Bags workshop made accessible some of the techniques she uses to create delicate artworks. At ATW, Tammy is dying the materials she uses in our Colour Lab, experimenting with plant dyes to create a stunning palette of subtle shades and tones. We are very grateful to Tammy for sharing her cultural perspective and knowledge with our weavers and guests.

Congratulations to Arts Centre Melbourne for Forty Years Under the Spire! The documentary hosted by Tim 'Rosso' Ross looks behind the scenes at the extraordinary vision of Sir Roy Grounds. We are very proud to see curator Steve Tonkin talk about the centre's art collection in front of The Winparrku Serpents; a tapestry designed by the artists of Kaapa Tjampitjinpa and woven at ATW. Charlie Tarawa Tjungarrayi, one of the founding artists of the Papunya Tula movement, was fascinated by The Winparrku Serpents tapestry when it was taken to Papunya in 1978. The artist visited the (then) Victorian Tapestry workshop to see his work Tingari Dreaming at Lake Mitukatji in progress, and he sang the Dreaming associated with the work to the weavers. You can read more about the several tapestries at ACM here: https://lnkd.in/ga6F3uSX and watch the documentary series online for free here: https://lnkd.in/gZgAdf5h Image shows a large art work. Snake and Water Dreaming. Designed by Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi (Artist) Woven by Irja West, Valerie Kirk, Jan Nelson, Christine Harris, Mary Coughlan and Susan Carstairs