WOVEN FORMS: CONTEMPORARY BASKET MAKING IN AUSTRALIA
February 3 – March 22, 2006; FORM Gallery
February 21 – March 21, 2007; Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery
Initiated by Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design, Woven Forms began its massive national tour with a launch in Sydney in September 2005, at Object Gallery. Fifty-eight Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists were chosen by a national curatorial panel comprised of Lindy Allen, Trish Barnard, Lola Greeno, Louise Hamby, Virginia Kaiser, Andrew Nicholls and Brian Parkes.
The exhibition was supported by Visions of Australia, the Commonwealth Government's national touring exhibitions grants program, and Object's National Exhibitions Strategy funded by the Australia Council. In Western Australia the show was supported by FORM through its partnership with BHP Billiton Iron Ore. The exhibition catalogue was sponsored by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
The Cultural Strands/Woven Visions national forum and publication followed Woven Forms and built on the success of the exhibition by taking ideas and concepts further and integrating heightened levels of pubic engagement and programs, and skills and capacity building for the fibre arts sector.
CLEVER WITH OUR HANDS PUBLIC PROGRAM
February 22 - 3 March, 2007; Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery
In partnership with the 2007 Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery leg of Woven Forms, FORM delivered a 10 day public and schools program, Clever with our Hands, for the local community to educate audiences as to the limitless, sculptural dimensions of contemporary fibre arts.
Designed and facilitated by Carly Davenport Acker to compliment the ideas, themes and artistic skills captured in Woven Forms, Clever with our Hands provided a series of free educational workshops held in at the Courthouse in February/March 2007 that targeted Indigenous and non-Indigenous adults, school-children and communities based in and around Port Hedland and the surrounding Pilbara region. The workshops were guided by acclaimed West Australian fibre artists and educators: Nalda Searles, Nola Taylor (Martumili Artsists) and Janine McAullay Bott (Noongar bush sculptor), who taught various forms of weaving skills and spoke about contemporary fibre practice throughout Australia.
Attendance numbers for the Clever with our Hands workshops were consistently high – and at the time set a record for attendance at the Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery. All schools workshops were booked to capacity and were attended by all Yandeyarra Remote Community School students - who turned the event into a full day excursion - as well as local Port Hedland school Saint Cecilia’s Primary school. Parents living remotely with home-schooled children attended both the workshops and open-mentor sessions. The Program was also attended by Indigenous women from South Hedland, Tjalka Warra and Jinparinya. A bilingual education guide for kids, complete with cartoons and text by Nalda Searles, was given to the 245 children in attendance to inspire their pathways of becoming artists of the future.