Exhibition Insight… New Exuberance by Meryl Ryan
Mavis Nampitjinpa Marks, Women's Business (detail), designed 2018, hand screen-printed by Publisher Textiles, 2022, ink, tencel linen. Courtesy of the artist and Ikuntji Artists. Photo Connor Patterson.
WE HAVE BEEN WEAVING FOR OVER 65,000 YEARS,
INTERTWINING TWO YARNS.
THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF WHAT MAKES LENGTHS OF FABRIC.
Grace Lillian Lee
New Exuberance is showing at JamFactory Adelaide until 23 April 2023, JamFactory at Seppeltsfield from
13 May - 2 July, followed by a national tour.
Words by Meryl Ryan - New Exuberance Curator
This project landed on my desk like a gift. At the time, in February 2022, the world had irrevocably changed. People were still negotiating the long-term fallout of a global pandemic. Russia had launched a brutal (and ongoing) invasion into Ukraine, generating horror and fear in equal measure. Social reform was regressing. And, locally, the frequent inundation of Australia’s Eastern seaboard, as well as the acceleration of coral bleaching and coastal erosion, reiterated the far-reaching consequences of unchecked global heating. Most of us didn’t know how to feel about things that used to matter. I know I didn’t. Day-in-day-out preoccupations and pleasures were on unstable ground, conditioned by a simmering futility, scepticism about the news, and an anxiety for a keener recognition of priorities from the ground up, world over.
This was when New Exuberance, with its broad take on contemporary Australian textile design, could find renewed purpose. Conceived pre-COVID-19, and partially developed by the JamFactory team during the years of intermittent lockdowns and postponements, the exhibition is a tonic. Not so long ago, exuberance may well have felt more carefree. But, today, a new more purposeful form of exuberance is emerging—one imbued with the importance of community, hope and advocacy, and the need to cultivate healthier pathways into the future.
With aesthetic, performative and functional aspects to its practice, textile design resists simple definition. It describes the art of surface patterning by screen, block, or digital printing, by handpainting, or by embellishing. It involves the manipulation of traditional production processes and techniques—weaving, spinning, dyeing—to create specific qualities, hues and textures. It can act as a vehicle for storytelling, and conceptual ideas. It can also draw on construction and the transfiguring of existing materials by crocheting, gathering, knitting, quilting, spinning, felting, pleating, knotting, smocking, patching, compressing, enmeshing and more.
Almost as old as humankind, textile design dates back millennia, to the earliest experiments in animal hides and furs, plant matter and weaving. As developments with cotton, silk, wool and trade continued to evolve over centuries, textiles became a vital and influential medium that permeated every aspect of daily life. Textile design, then, functioned not only as social, practical and economic tool, but also as a herald, telegraphing ideas and cultural knowledge across continents.
Today, textile design is a vibrant boundary-blurring creative field. By its very nature, it cross-pollinates, moving through graphic, furniture and product design, fashion and the visual arts. Whether produced by highly original First Nations artists or dynamic interdisciplinary collaborations, textile design encompasses a rich breadth of approaches and expressions of identity.
Across New Exuberance, memory, history, politics, personality and traditional lore are explored through textiles. For Jemima Wyman, the narrative draws on careful research into visual manifestations of resistance. Collaged images of protest-zone smokescapes coalesce into a curtain. Face coverings, with their threefold function to disguise (or camouflage), unify (in concealment), and protect (from detection or disease), are the subject of repeated patterns in both a fabric-swatch book and a suite of COVID-19 masks. In contrast, Stavroula Adameitis, of Frida Las Vegas, raids personal memories of 80s Australian milk bars and her Greek-Australian heritage to invent a series of sassy non-gendered, free-sized Glamour Sacks, Maxis and Kaftans. And Nixi Killick invokes youth and future possibilities with complex augmented-reality-activated textile designs in seductively colourful techno- streetwear. For Nina Walton, the language of textile design offers a conceptual framework that articulates the tension between freedom and constraint. Using a warp and weft motif, and a palette of coloured-thread spools, she ‘paints’ wall works that reflect on systems, rules and the creative act.
But in textile design, the materials don’t always have to be new. For one thing, upcycling means less waste. For another, rescued textiles can become charged with their latent former lives. They have personality—in function, pattern, texture, craftsmanship and condition—and are ripe for reincarnation. Vita Cochran, long celebrated for her modernist embroidered wall works and bags, is also deconstructing unwanted garments and gleaning offcuts to make compelling ‘exploded-coat’ quilts and hooked-rag rugs (often with art history references). Kate Just, as in her signature knitted panels, registers a more explicit narrative. In the ongoing Clothes Portraits series, she reworks well-worn everyday clothing donated by artist friends into quilt-like tributes—they become hanging second skins that suggest larger-than-life personal stories.
Jay Jurrupula Rostron, Mimih Dancing and Bolung (Rainbow Serpent) (detail), designed 2022, lino-printed in Maningrida 2022, silk dupion, ink, 140 x 400 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Bábbarra Women’s Centre. Photo Connor Patterson.
Hannah Gartside, Illusion Quilt (video still),2020, HD video, duration 3:18 mins. Commissioned by McCarthy-Swann Projects. Courtesy of the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
Just as Cochran repurposes cast-offs, Hannah Gartside relishes leftover or abandoned materials: kerbside upholstery, dressmaking oddments, preloved gloves, curtains and clothing. Each find brings specific resonance to her refined and precise creative language. ‘I value worn fabric,’ says Gartside, ‘as if it has its own sentience, or consciousness.’ 1 Storytelling, then, for the former costume designer, is deeply underscored by the speculative past existences she imagines for her found-textile protagonists. Motion in Gartside’s works, either actual or implied, reinforces this perception, and intentionally coopts a sense of theatre.
Indeed, ideas around theatre and performance recur across New Exuberance. Marrithiyel couturier Paul McCann’s flamboyant tuxedos and richly coloured big gowns have made him a shooting fashion-star. ‘The looks have an element of drama to them,’ he asserts, ’and that’s important … I want you to feel something.’ Like many other makers in the exhibition, McCann’s painstaking practice is antithetical to fast fashion: ‘I try to use as much of the fabric I have so as not to create waste … Where possible, I like to collect and use vintage dead-stock fabrics for a more one-of-a-kind feel.’ 2 Through specific cultural adornments and handpainted details, McCann also brings connection to Country into a context that reclaims a celebrity glamour of the past.
For many First Nations artists, creative practice is closely aligned to cultural histories, ancestral stories and spirituality. Storytelling through artmaking, textile design and, increasingly, through fashion, is of profound significance and a source of pride. Wearing the textiles animates them: ‘It’s like life is being breathed into the stories, bringing them alive!’ declares Claire Summers, Executive Director of Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation (DAAFF). ‘It becomes a really strong way of communicating and is incredibly empowering for artists to see.’ 3
Paul McCann, Sovereignty Cloak and Crown, viewing his Gumnut, ball gown 2021, at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Queer exhibition opening, 2022. Photo Liz Sunshine, courtesy of NGV,
The continuation and development of textile practices offers a way of safeguarding and sharing knowledge, aesthetics and culture within First Nations communities and, generously, to those well beyond.
Grace Lillian Lee, an artist strongly influenced by her Meriam Mer heritage, is feted for her distinctive wearable sculptures, body adornments, fashion and textile design, all informed by Torres Strait Island culture and traditional ‘grasshopper weaving’ techniques. Lee has also played a leading role in the rapid evolution of the First Nations fashion-performance movement. For her, fashion is about asserting identity: ‘It’s about cultural preservation, about knowledge and making it cool and relatable.’ 4 Lee was founder and curator of Cairns Indigenous Art Fair Fashion Performance (2013–2017), Creative Director of DAAFF’s From Country to Couture (2017–2019), and is Founder, CEO and Chairperson of the not-for-profit Indigenous corporation First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD). All are influential platforms for Indigenous fashion and textile design. Along with FNFD COO Teagan Cowlishaw, Lee serves as a conduit between remote-community artists, First Nations designers, and the contemporary industry. FNFD’s work, and its growing visibility through digital and print media, has further broadcast the social and artistic value of an innovative sector that can both honour and connect cultures.
In a moving declaration at the close of 2022 Afterpay Australian Fashion Week (AAFW22), FNFD revealed their visionary Future of Fashion initiative, identifying knowledge-sharing and preservation of the globe as crucial drivers for the way ahead. The project, thematically curated by FNFD to reflect on the climate emergency, invited seven First Nations designers each to work one-on-one with a non-Indigenous designer-collaborator. New Exuberance exhibitors Paul McCann, Grace Lillian Lee, Romance Was Born, Jordan Gogos and Nixi Killick were enlisted to work on pieces for the project. The seven final collaborative works were then revealed in a triumphal runway show that garnered critical acclaim.
As the success of AAFW22’s First Nations events and DAAFF’s Country to Couture 2022 attests, First Nations textile and fashion design is finding its rightful place on the world stage. Work produced at art centres and collectives from the Top End and remote Australia (like Bábbarra Women’s Centre, Ikuntji Artists, Tiwi Design, and many more) is in demand for exhibitions, institutional collections and catwalks, not only across this country but also internationally. Most recently, for example, Ikuntji’s textile designs (in collaborative garments made with Raw Cloth, Darwin) appeared in Paris, Dublin and London with London Pacific Fashion Week 2022; textile lengths from Bábbarra and Tiwi Design were included in the monumental exhibition Aboriginal Screen-Printed Textiles from the Top End, at Fowler Museum, UCLA, USA (2021–2022, with most pieces acquired); and, at the time of writing, Bábbarra’s textile exhibition Jarracharra: dry season wind was still touring abroad after launching in Paris in 2019. 5 Artists from Bábbarra also took out honours at 2022 National Indigenous Fashion Awards (NIFA); and textiles from Tiwi Design (in garmentsby Ossom) and from Ikuntji (with Black Cat Couture) were a strong feature of the Country to Couture 2022 catwalk.
Susan Marawarr, Mandjabu (Fish Trap) (detail), designed 2017, hand screen-printed in Maningrida 2022, cotton drill, ink, 140 x 400 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Bábbarra Women’s Centre. Photo Connor Patterson.
Partnership ventures are also on the increase. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations and businesses, including JamFactory, are eager to collaborate on the production of covetable objects, clothing, accessories and furnishings, as more people invite First Nations narratives into their homes and wardrobes. As Franchesca Cubillo, Executive Director First Nations Arts and Culture, Australia Council for the Arts, asserts, ‘Indigenous history, spirituality and cultural values are displayed proudly and seen as true indicators of what it means to be Australian.’ 6 This development has rightly mandated more rigorous consultative processes that ensure cultural safety: to honour, acknowledge and protect when engaging with Indigenous material culture.
The successful two-collection partnership between Gunditjmara/Torres Strait Islander artist Lisa Waup and Melbourne-based fashion designer Ingrid Verner is a beacon of respectful synergistic collaboration. The conversation between Waup’s bold textile graphics and Verner’s responsive garment designs is fluent and dynamic, compatibly connecting themes of identity and personal histories with spare power.
A belief in cultural generosity and a sharper awareness of the complexities of the individual are encouraging a fresh sense of purpose in the worlds of design, art and fashion. Consequently, this has spurred a necessary move towards more inclusivity, cooperation and sustainability (and delight!). Again, AAFW22 reiterated this shift, with a more determined focus on acceptance, size non-specificity, gender fluidity, diversity, adaptive fashion, upcycling, and genuine teamwork that acknowledges the magnitude of back-of-house support. Unease about the fashion industry’s convention of relentless season-driven collections (and subsequent excess) was also more vocal. In fact, several of the talk sessions, regardless of topic, came back to at least one of these important issues, particularly collaboration.
After his spectacular Iordanes Spyridon Gogos AAFW22 runway event at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, Jordan Gogos identified dynamic co-creation, rather than sole authorship, as a key influence on the label’s aesthetic and performance. ‘I wanted to just sit with people and make with people,’ he has said, ‘it just felt like fashion needed more dialogue.’ 7 His infectious vision galvanised the museum and sparked the formation of an ensemble of more than 60 creatives—from milliners, florists and sculptors to a magician of a shoemaker. Pulled together by unique methods of textile construction and a fearless palette, the wit and detail of each final showpiece was a feat. Add to this their characterful presentation by a modelling cast of real bodies on a hand-fashioned stage in the Boiler Hall and you arrived at pure joy. With this egalitarian enthusiasm and drive for design synergy, Gogos’ practice embodies the feeling of new exuberance.
Enchantment is also common currency for Romance Was Born, as is serial collaboration. The label’s co-founders—Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales—have shared imaginations and a workroom with leading Australian creatives (including Linda Jackson, Jenny Kee, Del Kathryn Barton, Ken Done, Lara Merrett) to conjure knockout bodies of work. In recent years, they have also declared their social and political will to influence change. Upcycling-directed couture dominated the runway in their 2021 RWB Forever collection, proving that repurposing accrued dead stock, vintage finds or crocheted doilies can be glamorous. Their work with sustainable-fashion pioneer Kit Willow’s designer-led Future from Waste Lab initiative echoes this resolve.
Such a history of collaboration has also led the RWB duo to participate in responsible community-engagement projects with not-for-profit organisations, such as The Social Studio, Melbourne. Conceived as a space of creative and cultural connection for young people of refugee and migrant backgrounds, The Social Studio has evolved into a thriving fashion enterprise. A case in point: their three-way collaborative iso-themed project with RWB and South Sudanese artist Atong Atem soon sold out of its limited-edition Merri Dress and Walk On Bag, with all proceeds returning to support programs.
Frida Las Vegas, Smokes And Snacks Glamour Maxi Dress. Creative Direction Stavroula Adameitis. Photo Eamon Donnelly.
Vita Cochran, Groupe des Femmes (after SD), 2019-20, rag rug :cut woollen garments and fabric hooked into cotton backing, 86 x 5 cm
Nixi Killick and model reading Killick’s Cryptic Frequency Augmented Reality Activated clothing using phone App Eyejack. Photo Corleve.
For some, like Kaylene Milner at WAH-WAH Australia, collaboration is core business. Each of the label’s knit designs has a unique character, which is fully ascribable to its featured artist/musician. Milner is also conscious of material longevity, shifting to hardwearing biodegradable Australian merino wool despite, surprisingly, having to move manufacturing offshore to do it.
In the context of our times—and years marked by so many competing crises— creative practice concerned with connection, authenticity and the trace of the hand has become all the more important. As this exhibition makes clear, an artisanal ethos, impelled by cultural, social and environmental concerns, is gaining agency. Eclectic and multidisciplinary, the artists of New Exuberance bring resourcefulness, reflection and renewal to the fore, in an unapologetic blaze of spirited invention. Exuberance in the hands of these creatives is at once joyful, edgy and wise.
1. Jedda Ayling, ‘Giving cloth its consciousness’, Stories and Ideas, Museum of Contemporary Art, 15 February 2022
2. Daisy Henry, ‘Marrithiyel fashion designer Paul McCann wants his work to make you feel something’, Fashion Journal, 5 May 2022
3. Claire Summers and Franchesca Cubillo, ‘From Ceremonial Ground to Catwalk: The Genesis of Contemporary Aboriginal Textile Arts’, in Joanna Barrkman (ed.), Aboriginal Screen-Printed Textiles from the Top End, Los Angeles: Fowler Museum, 2021, p. 227
4. Claire Summers with Grace Lillian Lee and Phillip Wilson, ‘Asserting Identity: Aboriginal Textiles and Fashion Performances’ in Joanna Barrkman (ed.), ibid., p. 242
5. Bábbarra Women’s Centre’s Jarracharra launched in France at the Australian Embassy in Paris (3 October 2019—10 January 2020) and has since toured to Belgium, Greece, Spain, Germany, The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
6. Summers; Cubillo, op. cit., p. 233
7. Fashion News ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Harper’s Bazaar Australia, June/July 2022, p. 38