Visual Art Inquiry - Reclaim the Void: Weaving Country Whole

Visual Art Inquiry – Reclaim the Void: Weaving Country Whole

Visual Art specialist, Alicia Rogers drew on the Aboriginal pedagogical model, Eight Ways (WNSW RAET 2010) when undertaking the Reclaim the Void: Weaving Country Whole Visual Art Inquiry. In this model learning is linked to community, local land, and environment. An essential protocol of Eight Ways is ‘if you take something you put something back’ and, with this in mind, attention was given to how new learning can benefit community. Hence, the Reclaim the Void Inquiry embodied concepts of collectivity, collaboration and shifting thinking away from ‘I’ to ‘we’; building empathy and a sense of care and belonging to a shared world.

Alicia’s work within a community collective building practices of collaboration and sharing assisted with supporting students to consider ways of mitigating environmental harm. Her many years working as a scenic artist in the arts industry – theatre/film/event production – provided experience in large scale artistic collaborations.

Reclaim the Void is a cross-cultural project. It seeks to raise awareness of the story of Country and its importance in Aboriginal culture in both its physical and spiritual dimensions. Its mission is reconciliation, healing and hope. The project was born from Ngalia Elders in Leonora expressing their pain and grief at ‘those gaping mining holes left all over our Country’. They envisaged a way to symbolically ‘seal’ one of the holes with an artwork expressing the story of Country.

The enterprise is a collaboration between Creative Director Vivienne Robertson and the Ngalia Heritage Research Council (Aboriginal Corporation) represented by cultural custodian Kado Muir, who is overseeing all cultural aspects of the project. The vision is to cover a disused mining pit with a large-scale ‘dot’ artwork made up of thousands of handmade circular rag-rugs woven from discarded fabric. Woven by people of all ages and from all walks of life, the rugs will be joined together into a giant textile artwork which tells the story of Country’ (Robinson & Muir, RV 2024).

Kado Muir Vivienne Robertson

Participating in this project, students undertook an exploration of environmental and installation art, with a discipline focus of weaving.

The children viewed Melbourne street-artist Meek’s artwork, Begging for Change (2004), along with a quote from artist Olafur Eliasson: ‘Does art have the power to change the world?’ This formed the initial provocation for the Inquiry.

Beginnings!

Whilst drawing on RV as inspiration, the visual art inquiry began by engaging with the local context, encouraging children to relate to the place where they live, and to connect with Wurundjeri knowledge and artworks. The children became acquainted with local Aboriginal knowledge through referencing Out & About with the Kulin Seasons (2020) by Annette Sax, Jenaya Serra, Catherine Hamm and Miriam Brown and the work of Wurundjeri Elder Uncle Bill Nicholson. They also explored installation art and contemporary artworks by Mandy Nicholson, Wurundjeri artist & Traditional Custodian of Naarm (Melbourne) & surrounds, and Aunty Kim Wandin (Wurundjeri) Iuk bagurrk gunga (2023), situated in the NGV moat.

Alicia contacted RV Creative Director Vivienne Robertson requesting to join the project: ‘I know of a small army of children who would love to offer support and contribute.’

The students viewed a stunning video made by Kado. They were able to connect with Kado and hear him explain the project, hear him speak Ngalia language, the sounds of wind and Country in the background, country so different to where we live and Country that is part of Echidna and Mountain Devil Dreaming. This really touched the children. They looked at images, google earth and videos of the region and these special little animals. The children loved them so much and were devastated their homes were being destroyed by mining.

The Journey!

The children wanted to send a big message of support to RV from down South. There was an initial attempt to make enough rugs to fill the basketball court…the children loved that idea as a challenge, but a few weeks in everyone realised that learning to warp a loom, weave and the specific circular rug making technique was a much slower and harder process than expected. The students understood that true acts of reconciliation require effort, collaboration and commitment. They had to care, to act and work together to make it happen.

The art room then became a hub of constant activity with weavers visiting across breaks and recesses. Students took weaving home over weekends sharing and swapping them over each weekend. They set up ‘secret weaving clubs,’ made and signed petitions asking other teachers to make time for weaving in their learning neighbourhoods. Others worked on rugs with their mums, older siblings and grandparents (and lots of stories about weaving with dogs and cats). They shared and helped each other by working on each other’s rugs, untangling mistakes, big kids supporting little kids. Nothing was bought – all materials used were recycled fabrics, and families donated old bed sheets.

Years 3-6 explored materiality and RV’s use of discarded fabrics and how it is a response to the modern problem of fabric waste and an acknowledgment of careless over-consumption at others’ expense. They watched War on Waste shorts. This helped everyone to be intentional with tearing the fabric (which was a problem at the start) and to use all scraps – nothing was to go in the bin and if it did it was fished out. Loose thread became abundant from the way they had to clean each strip. Ezra (yr. 3-4) started collecting loose thread for stuffing soft toys that she made, then everyone got on board with collecting thread for Ezra. Alicia dyed plain fabrics in turmeric as Vivienne was short on yellow, and other natural dyes were also used. A couple of families helped heat set some of the colours.

Weaving is great for wellbeing; it is relaxing, calming and invites being the present in the moment. The time and effort it took to complete a rug was a very important part of the project as it made the children sit with the project for a long time and think about why they were doing it, who they were doing it for. That was where Alicia saw the shift in thinking from ‘I’ to ‘we.’

The weaving involved lots of tangling and untangling – it had a path of its own. It wasn’t about the quantity of rugs. Alicia kept in touch with Vivienne who described how the project aligns with a cultural process of ’emerging/unfolding.

‘Well, collectively, we’ve done it! 3,000 rugs, and still collecting and counting!!! Thank you so much to all of you for being involved. I know not all of you got to completed rugs – but that’s ok. Collectively we did, and every little bit of intention, of cloth, of hands and care, whether it ended in a rug or not, has been vital along the way.’ [Vivienne Robertson]

‘To have 300+ kids’ hands, heads and hearts onboard and being with them on RV journey was beyond special – they were amazing. Each of the rugs created held unique character, heart and story. They were all made with intent as a gift to heal Country. The students enjoyed arranging them like a rainbow and touching and feeling them. Vivienne & Kado are superheroes to us – just amazing – we are lucky. I am grateful. The students learnt so much – to care, to question the status quo, that Reconciliation is more than a word it is an action, to care about Kado, the Ngalia community and their land, Aboriginal land, over-consumption, the future. That art can change the world…alongside the power of play, weaving and hula hooping – yay (together a perfect combination) As mentioned earlier importantly the kids and community had to step out from a position of ‘I’ to ‘we’ and to being a part of the even greater ‘we.’ A joy and privilege to be a part of.’ [Alicia Rogers]

And this where we left off at the end of term 2:

‘We’re so happy to have engaged with the project it has been a learning journey of doing and making, tangles and untangling, persistence, collaboration, active citizenship, sustainability, empathy, healing, and hope. It has been fun weaving together with hula hooping, singing, sharing and playing with colour. We hope parents and carers, students and our school community will continue to follow Reclaim the Void as the rugs made by students become joined to the greater artwork and final installation.’

https://blogs.phps.vic.edu.au/specialists2023/2024/06/19/assemblage/

Where to next?

Years 3-6 students will be encouraged to reflect on RV and to design and create their own photographic concept image for an art installation within the school grounds and linked to issues that they care about. We are working on this now… will see how it travels!

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