Gallery Two

18 July - 14 September 2025

Location:
JamFactory
Tarntanya/Adelaide
Kaurna Country

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Weaving the Machine

Paying homage to the Lakun (weaving) of his Great Grandfather Milerum, Robert Wuldi invigorates traditional Ngarrindjeri weaving with new material approaches, transforming salvaged copper wire into objects of lustrous beauty.

I strip the guts and hearts of machines destined for landfill and scrap, transforming discarded metal into woven Tangani treasure. – Robert Wuldi

When Wuldi began weaving with galvanised wire, it was in reference to how unceded land was divided, fenced and cordoned, preventing his ancestors from accessing the land with which they had thousands of years of intimate connection. Wuldi has reframed wire as a resource for his practice, subverting the wire from a tool of control into an item of culture and beauty. In this exhibition he uses wire from truck alternators, washing machines and the 90-year-old shearers quarters where he lives at Narrung, on Ngarrindjeri territory.

Each work carries culture through form and language, with many referencing his connection to ancestors and family. Works echo the Kuranji basket’s woven by Milerum held in the collection of the SA Museum, while his Lakwunami Punawi (woven bag) bears his Mother's name, honoring consistent practice across hundreds of years.

Through Weaving the Machine Wuldi draws our attention to the dynamic between traditional and innovative, pragmatic and sculptural, and between what he calls the ‘guts of the colonial machine’, and the inherent beauty of the intricate objects he has woven.

This exhibition is presented as part of SALA Festival.

 Exhibitor: Robert Wuldi

Robert Wuldi,  Kuranji 1, 2025, recycled copper wire Shearer's Quarters, 910 x 450 x 270 mm; Kuranji 2, 2025, recycled copper wire Shearer's Quarters, 690 x 310 x 210 mm