Ann Cunningham Artist Statement
Ann Cunningham and Shazia untitled 2023
eco dyed paper, twining and stitching
Artist’s Book
42 x 30 8 cm (closed)
The process of producing eco dyed paper has many stages. To me this reflects the passage of time in Shahnaz’ story while the twining of the printed text (both English and Dari) speaks of the tension of the story itself and its telling.
The paper used is Awagami Kitikata 90gsm. Although a fine paper it copes with soaking in separate alum and soy milk baths and then boiling after being bundled with plants and tied securely. After cooling, the bundles are untied and the plants have left both their shapes and colours imbedded in the paper. The paper started out delicate, almost flimsy. After the eco dying process it is coloured and textured and holds the essence of the plants in a much coarser form. It becomes quite tactile. Learning Shahnaz’ story has this impact. The processing of the paper reflects the impact of the story. The impressions cannot be removed.
The embossing and colour of the plants become part of the paper. The choice of plants also tell part of the story. What they each represent is imbedded in the paper. Plants used include forget me not, eucalyptus, blackberry with its luscious fruit and sharp prickles, fern, peppercorn and jasmine. Plants that blossom, prickle and creep.
The finished work unfolds to show the full text. The Dari text is glued to the eco dyed paper. It is also accompanied by Dari text which has been twined so that only a small amount of text can be seen. Some of the English text has also been twined but with more of the text left visible. The idea of twining has echoes of entanglement and suffocation, reflecting not only the intensity of Shahnaz’ story but also the difficulty of telling it. The strings are stitched to the paper perhaps suggesting further entrapment.
Annique Goldenberg Artist Statement
Annique Goldenberg and Shazia
Unity and Struggle 2023
relief print, acrylic on digital print, embroidery thread, hair
Artist’s Book
41.8 x 29.7 cm (closed)
We want to take charge of our destiny both in the field of education and work and in the field of socio-political participation in society. And this goal is not possible without the unity and struggle of girls and women. 1
I have been partnered with Shazia for this third Unfolding Project – While We Are Waiting, and I thank her for sharing her story with us. I found it took time to absorb her words, to feel what she described, to hear her thoughts and dreams; for herself, for Afghan girls and women, and for her country.
It is unimaginable for me to truly know what she has experienced, what she still experiences today. I found my response took the form of an expressive mark, an image drawn as an ocean wave pushed pigment over my paper, capturing every particle as its force swept across the page. Once printed, I joined the two halves of my drawing with a column of red sutures, an act of mending to strengthen the work’s spine. As a personal message to Shazia, I sewed one suture with my hair, a material with no structural strength, but included as an expression of connection and solidarity, woman to woman. A sentiment the While We Are Waiting project represents for me.
For the text, I chose two Dari words from Shazia’s final sentence placing them in a quiet space within the maelstrom of energy created by the water’s movement. Two words that embodied for me her sense of empowerment and strength. When my page in the collection is closed, the story and Dari script are hidden, we only see two words in English. It is only when the cover is opened, can we connect and hopefully understand the importance of these words to Shazia’s world. Unity and Struggle
1 Shazia, July 27, 2022. Kunduz, Afghanistan
Barbara Kameniar Artist Statement
Barbara Kameniar and Gawhar
manifesto 2024
Fine art digital print, stamp (Shachihata oil pigment, Dialastamp)
Artist’s Book
42.2 x 29.7 cm (closed)
Gawhar commences by asking “How can we develop a country?” She asks the question in the context of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 and what she sees as the failure of an elected government with a large armed force to defend the country against the smaller army of the Taliban. Gawhar then outlines elements required to help build a society.
I was struck by the strength and clarity of her insights. Like the words in a manifesto, her insights moved me toward a vision of a new and better world. What struck me most was the importance she placed on unity, education, and young people. As a lifelong educator I understood these three words to be intertwined in a dance of possibilities - “together through education the young generation can build something new”. In responding to Gawhar’s courage and vision for herself and her people I wanted to highlight the power that words can have in creating a world that is transformed for the better. The sheets are folded so the ‘front cover’ boldly reads MANI FESTO. I wanted the sheets to presage a vision of a powerful new future inside the folded pages.
Opening the sheets reveals three photographic images highlighting the strength and determination of Afghan women. Two of the women I know, one is unknown. On the left is Gurdaafarid standing among her father’s crops before she made the journey to Australia to study. In the centre is Arzoo, her hands raised in triumph as she returns to study in Kabul despite the perils. On the right is a young woman who is not known to us. She represents the many young Afghan women we do not know but who continue to struggle in protest for their rights.
The images are rendered in greyscale (they were originally in colour) because I wanted to report the enactment of this manifesto in the present as one might report in a newspaper. Mirroring Derrida’s Le Dernier Mot du racisme, I wanted Gawhar’s words and the artist book to serve as ‘a memory in advance’ – what is announced has already come, and so the announcement serves to bring it about.
In searching for images to respond, I came across an Afghan stamp on which both English and Dari were written. The stamp was issued in 1920 during the reign of King Amanullah who, along with Queen Soraya Tarzi, opened a school for girls in Kabul and sent a group to study in England. This tiny stamp was like a thread connecting past hopes in unity among Afghans, young Afghan people, and education, both in Afghanistan and abroad, with Gawhar’s ‘memories in advance’.
Catherine Pilgrim Artist Statement
Catherine Pilgrim and Mahbouba untitled 2023
lithography, hand coloured with graphite Artist’s Book 42 x 30 cm (closed)
This untitled work continues previous imagery that focused on unknown information in historical narratives. Incomplete imagery and empty pictorial space become a metaphor for inaccessible information.
“We don’t know what happened to that girl.”
Simultaneously the work ‘draws’ on earlier imagery where fabric is a central subject matter.
I have previously used Ultramarine Blue for monochromatic works to reflect myopic views of white colonial history. Here, I acknowledge my limited understanding due to cultural differences, yet stand in solidarity with women who find hope and determination despite harrowing circumstances.
Christine Willcocks Artist Statement
Christine Willcocks and Bahira untitled 2023
monoprint, photo transfer
Artist’s Book
30.8 x 29cm (closed)
Responding to Bahira’s strong words of the treatment of women and girls by the Taliban’s regime, I reflected on my own freedom of voice allowing me to question the world around me.
The Burqa not only stood in for the enclosure of vision but also the symbolic covering of the mouth.
When opened, the book reveals the view from my studio, a place of freedom to speak, to see, and it is from this place that I hope for a future for Bahira and all the women of Afghanistan the same freedom.
Afghanistan belongs to ALL its people.
Deanna Hitti Artist Statement
Deanna Hitti and Arzoo
I wanted to share my feelings with you today 2023
6 sided cyanotype and 2 colour screen print
Artist’s Book
29.5 x 42 cm (closed)
The title of this work, “I wanted to share my feelings with you today”, is the first line from Arzoo's story. Her personal story is of living under government suppression and being denied basic human rights. As time passes, she holds hope for her country and fellow citizens to be free.
In this artwork I have illustrated a space where stories can be told over a cup of coffee in my family home. A space where women feel comfortable to tell their story to another woman who listens rather than responds. It is not an exchange but rather a moment in time. Time to process emotions and all that has been taken away.
The screen printed coffee set is from my family home. A set that has heard many stories and forged many connections. A moment between two people to gain understanding and show empathy towards told experiences.
Di Ellis Artist Statement
Di Ellis and Arzoo
trembling hearts 2023
embroidery on organza stitched to watercolour painted paper, photographed and printed on rag paper.
Pierced and cross-stitched with DMC thread
Artist’s Book
40.6 x 27cm (closed)
The words from the essay by the Afghan woman Arzoo that lingered in my mind were “With Trembling Hearts and Hands“. This sentiment with its connotations of tenderness seemed so foreign to me in the genre of war and genocide. I’d always known them as words of love, romantic love, of the Mills and Boon type love. Not from the belief that we are about to die, today, at the university, rounded up like cattle, from no fault of our own, but because we live in a country overrun by the Taliban and we are women daring to study and that is a crime.
It’s beyond my comprehension to imagine the lives of these brave women swaddled by law in head to toe black, unable to travel, study or do anything outside the realm of house keeping and child rearing. Women can be murdered by the morality police for so little consequence as an incorrectly worn head covering. It’s hard to look at photos from the 1970s when these women were free to wear what they liked, pursue an education, work for pay and travel freely.
I responded to the essay thinking I would offer light and beauty in the face of such dark days. A garden soothes, and offers comfort in times of stress. I hand embroidered flowers and leaves, beetles and bugs on organza before collaging them into a garden of my own design stitched to paper and printed before over-stitching the chosen words from my given essay in cross stitch to the printed image.
It is my belief there is never yin without yang / good without evil and as such, I have inserted an embroidered Australian funnel web spider symbolic for me of the Taliban because like this poisonous spider they will strike without provocation.
Gali Weiss Artist Statement
Gali Weiss and Sahar
Safe Houses 2023
video stills, digital artwork fine art print
Artist’s Book
42 x 29.7 cm (closed)
Since 2016 the base of my artworks has comprised stills and videos of my face in relation to the sights of my interior and exterior worlds. What is sight? I question. One of the resource videos I filmed was of my hand moving over my face, with my eyes closed, feeling the path of my forehead to my chin. Within that movement, I imagined my father’s face from his forehead to his chin. I wanted to feel his presence through my own.
I never ended up developing that video into a creative work, though it lingered in my mind. When I read Sahar’s story about her and the orphanage AFSECO’s team setting up safe houses as protection against Taliban persecution, I noticed how many times she used the word pressure. That’s when the imagery of my face and the pressing of fingers emerged in my mind and heart. I felt her presence. Pressure can be exposing unsettling feelings but it is also a push for action. And life.
As I added Sahar’s words into my imagery, the text body grew into veil-like imagery over the faces, moving between revealing and covering them. Despite the ongoing pressure that Sahar describes, she also writes of her pride in her and her colleagues’ work to protect women, inspiring me with a reflection of light within the darkness of that time.
Heather Shimmen Artist Statement
Heather Shimmen and Nazia
On the Moon 2023
linocut, mono print, solvent transfer, stencil and ink on paper
Artist’s Book
42.3 x 29.5 cm (closed)
Having read Nazia’s poem ‘On the Moon’ a number of times, my understanding and visualisations have shifted and altered at each reading. In my ‘mind’s eye’ images have slowly emerged expressing these evocative words and phrases. These words are not easy to read as they evoke a kind of a quiet scream of grief and anger and fear at the plight of women in Afghanistan. It is first hand experience that has informed this poem, making it all the more arresting and poignant. As the reader my life experiences have been profoundly different from those of the author, thus the imagery created is in response to, rather than an illustration of, the poem.
Working predominantly in the medium of linocut, the pages of the book incorporate both transparent and opaque layers, monoprinting, carbon transfers and some printed text (On the Moon). Five pages make up the book, each page printed on both sides while the transparent page of text (in both English and Dari) is loose leaf and centrally placed. The pages fold in an order that allows the emergence of whole and part glimpses of a variety of imagery Images that recur throughout the work include ghosted visions of a young girl, references to the moon, transparent bones, silhouettes of a bird that spreads across the pages and a dominating blemished hand completing the sequence. I chose to use a cool pallet for some pages referencing the despair for the present situation expressed in the poem and in others warm tones pervade, expressing a longing and hope for a better future. These are the responses I feel and imagine when absorbing this powerful poem by Nazia.
Jennifer Kamp Artist Statement
Jennifer Kamp and Bahira
The Taliban dictates 2023 fine art digital print Artist’s Book
42.3 cm x 29.7 cm (closed)
Bahira writes of increasing day by day restrictions by the Taliban against women of Afghanistan. My immediate reaction to her distressing narrative was to reflect on, as a comparison, my lifestyle and many individual freedoms. I enjoy choices and possibilities that incorporate study, travel and communication opportunities.
I was gazing from my lounge room through my windows at the passing urban landscape contemplating the oppressive issues of control that Bahira describes in her text. How I can express through metaphoric imagery empathy and understanding of her words.
I photographed my personal surrounds, the voluminous curtains and my car. I imported these images into my computer to create a dialogue with her text. The curtain imagery was manipulated, no longer transparent; the patterning through constant repetition and reversal became convoluted. The empty car window frame portrayed as an opaque shroud.
The digital printing process itself became a complex procedure, with the demands of sourcing paper and inks appropriate for reverse printing of the artwork. I wanted the folded and conjoined sheets to suggest an interminable masking and control that when fully opened disclosed Bahira’s text overlaying the central car window image. Sombre veiling tones were used as a deliberate counter point to focus on the central red car window.
Bahira’s “ the Taliban dictates” was referenced to contextualise my imagery.
Karena Goldfinch Artist Statement
Karena Goldfinch and Tamana untitled 2023 photopolymer photogravure tryptich created from a botanical print using Ginkgo Biloba and Allocasuarina Verticillata leaves Artist’s Book 42 cm x 30 cm (closed)
A white bird flies above a landscape in chaos and turmoil, we are painfully aware of her vulnerability and sense her desire to escape the bedlam below. Her wings beat frantically, and she only just manages to stay in the air. It’s a perilous place here as she struggles to stay aloft. We hope that further flight is imminent.
Tamana: “I wish that I could study in a place far away from the sound of war”
Tamana’s desperate words speak to us of the agony of war and the plight of women in Afghanistan. We are confronted by her pain and her wish to break free of the terrible restraints that the Taliban imposed on her and her community. We want to offer her hope that her dream to become a doctor will be fulfilled.
It was never more apparent than during the months of Covid 19 lockdown that birds were a symbol of freedom and self-determination. They almost flew on to the paper as my botanical prints rapidly evolved into landscapes. It was not a comfortable place, this altered land and the birds often appeared uneasy within their surroundings.
The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo subsequently arrived on my computer screen creating a digital collage. There is an additional archival digital print as a separate image enclosed. Native to Australia the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is a relatively large bird with a distinctive yellow crest on the back of its head that stands up when it is alarmed. They prefer to nest in the hollows of large old trees. They are strong, intelligent, and determined.
Kath Armour Artist Statement
Kath Armour and Shukria
Life in a Dream 2023
digital print of collaged work, eco print with collage and pencil
Artist’s Book
42 x 29.2 cm (closed)
One morning in early 2020 I opened my back door and there, standing on one leg on my welcome mat, was a singed magpie. I had heard that after the fires in Gippsland to be aware of injured birds that may need nurturing as they had flown west to escape. We called him Larry and nurtured him back to health. I then started drawing and painting all sorts of wild birds on paper and on silk. I had been enjoying ecoprinting native leaves on paper and then added cut out drawn and collaged birds. This is what I was doing and working on when Gali sent her email invitation to the While We Are Waiting project.
When I read Shukria’s story of a bird with a broken wing I felt an immediate emotional response and I thought about the devastation in Afghanistan that I had watched unfolding on the news. I started more eco-printing with the leaves from Australian native trees, and then drew and collaged many birds onto this as I thought about the feelings of imprisonment that Shukria has written about. Included in each print is a special small, intimate card of Shukria’s story.
Marian Crawford Artist Statement
Marian Crawford and Gurdafaarid
My Daughter 2023
relief print, letterpress
Artist’s Book
42.5 x 30 cm (open)
As I planned to make this book, I thought about the impact of the force of the politics imposed by the Taliban regime on the lives of Gurdafaarid and the women of Afghanistan, and the re-arrangements they have been forced to make to live with these changes.
The pages of my book are irregularly shaped, and some are folded. The book is loosely bound, like a pamphlet, and doesn’t have a first or last page. The pages can be rearranged and refolded as it is read or viewed, to explore how a sequence can be changeable, and maybe challenging and confusing.
I selected short phrases from Gurdafaarid’s complex story for the book. These phrases demonstrate a mother’s advice to her daughter, optimism, and an inspiring determination to see a fair and safe political landscape in Afghanistan. These short texts are printed close to the fore-edge of the pages, as if they might run over onto the next page, or run out of room. The book is printed in one colour, a warm yellow, a colour of kindness.
The images are grids, their wobbly interweaving creating strength but also suggesting a possibility of unravelling, instability, and that something could give way. The images spread out to cover the pages, there are no borders, in a small reflection on the endless struggle, the determination, and the strength of Afghan women.
Megan Stone Artist Statement
Megan Stone and Khojesta
The sky that connects us all 2024 fine art digital print
Artist’s Book
41.6 x 29 cm (closed)
The first thing that struck me while reading Khojesta’s words of hope is that the only good feeling in her life is to study. This is such a contrast to our comfortable, plentiful Australian lives. Her hopes extend to Journalism and her aspirations are fuelled by “Jounalists were hunted down for targeted killings”. She wants to carry on their work standing up against oppression and tyranny.
“I want to be their voice”, her words, echo across the sky reaching to be heard. Her call extends across the pages of the artist’s book, connecting out with the folds.
The sky connects us all, a oneness with the universe. It is a source of wonder and awe, accessible by most even during times of adversity. It encourages us to feel bigger and more able, than our human, physical experience. The ever-changing sky and clouds remind me of the impermanence of life. Sky colour and atmosphere change quietly and constantly. Adversely, I am comforted by the predictability of the sun rising, the sunset, moonrise and twinkling stars. I want to share my love and empathy with the Afghan women.
The hand woven part of the centred panel, is made up of images of the sky and cloud in sequence of the sun rising. The weaving popped into my head from a memory of growing up on a farm and finding ways to occupy myself. I felt a connected with personal touch to the Afghan women with my hope for a better future, “while we are waiting”.
Rosalind Atkins Artist Statement
Rosalind Atkins and Nazia
Courage Perseverance Bravery Discrimination
Oppression Inequality 2023
linocut, watercolour, gold leaf
Artist’s Book
42 x 29.5 cm (closed)
Nazia describes her writing of the tragic situation for women before and after the re-establishment of the Taliban as the scratching of an old wound. Reading of the treatment of women in Afghanistan was very confronting from my comfortable position in contemporary Australian society. How to address Nazia’s writing in a visual way required lengthy contemplation.
Responding to another’s writing was not about illustrating the text but about providing an acknowledgment that her words had been heard. And so, it was Nazia’s words that I chose as the imagery. On one side of the front folded sheets are three negative words; discrimination, oppression and inequality, on the other side are three positive words; courage, perseverance, and bravery. The words were cut in reverse on lino and printed by hand (I wanted to make the process labour intensive). When the sheets are folded to join in the middle, they become illegible, masked as the Afghani women but with a power if you care to look. Exposed upon the opening of the covering sheets are the words hope and freedom. These speak of the strength of the author who despite writing of many horrors expresses a willingness to hope for a better future for the women of Afghanistan. This sheet with words made with gold leaf are decorated with indigenous flora, the tulip being the national flower of Afghanistan. Ultramarine watercolour seemed the natural choice of colour because the colour is extracted from lapis lazuli, sourced for thousands of years exclusively from Afghanistan.
Silvi
Glattauer
Artist Statement
Silvi Glattauer and Arzoo untitled 2023 photopolymer photogravure on Somerset Velvet 300 gsm Artist’s Book 42 x 30.4 cm (closed)
My artist book pages weave a response to a story shared to me by Arzoo, an Afghan woman dealing with life under the Taliban. Arzoo and her sister find themselves in an unsettling encounter with the Taliban while out shopping in their village. The experience was so disconcerting it compels them to withhold the harrowing details upon their return home, shielding their mother from the potential repercussions.
My artwork isn't a direct depiction of this experience. Instead, it acts like a metaphor for the situation, with my own essence woven into the narrative. The two majestic Great Egrets in the artwork represent the sisters, connected and playful, taking flight, an allegorical embodiment of the sisters' bond. They exist in a setting that's both beautiful and threatening, with burnt bushlands juxtaposed against lifegiving wetlands creating a dichotomy of the sister’s situation. It's my way of capturing the complicated reality of the sisters' lives through the lens of my own reality, where environmental impacts are now also resulting in an uncertain future.
Within the artwork, I've integrated the complete text penned by Arzoo in Dari, along with its English translation. The text envelops the imagery in a manner that suggests a sense of confinement, as if the birds are being encroached upon. When the pages are shut, and only a glimpse of the birds is seen through the central opening, a subtle feeling of hope for freedom emerges.
It has been an absolute privilege to work on this project.
Stephanie Mortlock Artist Statement
Stephanie Mortlock and Diyana
In any shape or colour we were compelled to remain 2024 watercolour, graphite
Artist’s Book
42.5 x 29.7 cm (closed)
Diyana’s poem is heart-wrenching, determined, hopeful. I was captivated by her words: In any shape or colour we were compelled to remain.
This evoked for me the way Eucalyptus trees regenerate after an intense bushfire. A once lush forest is turned to a desolate wasteland, dotted with blackened trunks, the ground littered with debris crumbling to ash. The trees have all surely been burnt beyond any hope of revival – but we should not underestimate them. Weeks and months pass, and plumes of epicormic growths, the delicate shoots covered with leaves in shades of green, cyan, mauve and crimson, begin to erupt from the columns of charred wood. Like the trees, Diyana tells us that she is still here, still growing. The epicormic shoots are a metaphor for her poem. Her words are both a creative expression, and an act of rebellion under a regime that seeks to silence her.
I made this work using graphite and watercolour, depicting Eucalyptus shoots I photographed and collected in the bush around my home. This practice made the project deeply personal and exploratory. The artist book follows the growth of red box eucalyptus, beginning with a sprig of mature leaves bordered by Diyana’s poem in English and Dari. These first pages open to reveal images of the young epicormic shoots. The leaves are mirrored below in a graphite drawing, embedded within a recently burnt landscape. This imagined landscape, though far away from Diyana, reaches out in solidarity. In a time of horrifying uncertainty, it offers strength and hope.
Tanya Ngerengere
Artist Statement
Tanya Ngerengere and Tahira
My dream – to be a doctor 2023 fine art digital process and print Artist’s Book
42.7 x 29.7 cm (closed)
Working in community health, I was drawn to Tahira’s story as she wrote of her dreams to become a doctor. I was both saddened and incensed by the idea that her right to a self-determined future was being denied to her and so many other women.
Merged with my own childhood memories of displacement through family violence, I wanted to represent Tahira’s words, through a cacophony of colour and collaged imagery that explores hope within absurdity and strength within uncertainty.
As a child I created a carnival of characters, with their sole purpose to rescue my mother and I myself. The performer on the flying trapeze, the airplane in flight, homing birds able to deliver SOS messages, all come to bear witness within this work.
And even though we have never met before, I am struck by how much Tahira’s story has engraved itself into my own narrative through our combined work. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my imagery alongside her story.
Tess Edwards Artist Statement
Tess Edwards and Shazia
Zainab 2023
acrylic and watercolour paint and oil pastel over a digital image taken from a French prayerbook
Artist’s Book
41.7 x 30 cm (closed)
Shazia’s heart rending true and lived account of her friend Zainab’s short life brought me to tears. She recounts how Zainab’s death at 16 was preceded by generational struggle, misery, displacement, poverty, insecurity, war and violence. Her parents and grandparents suffered trauma and struggle, and Zainab’s existence exacerbated the family's entrapment. So many children died from hunger and the violence of war. Zainab’s family are representative of many many more.
It is a very straight narrative, ending with the death of a 16 year old body weakened from hunger and trauma, resulting in a stroke. Zainab was no more, and the joy she had brought to her family turned to desperate grief.
My response to this was through the mist of tears, thinking of the comparative meaning and “value” of some lives over others….I visualised her frail skinny body, wasted even before she was old enough to become an adult. The price some have to pay just for being alive, while we take the good life for granted.
The image is superimposed over the prayer for the dead, with two pages ripped apart. Zainab is under her shroud, rising into the light and surrounded by a meadow of wildflowers. Here she will find peace and a new beginning, leaving behind her grieving family and friends like Shazia. Leaving and provoking us all to contemplate and confront the mystery and complexity of lives, through generations and time; cycles and repeats on the wheel of suffering until someone is able to jump off.
I feel honoured to represent in a small and humble way this small and humble life, which has enriched mine enormously. Thank you Shazia and thank you Zainab.
Tracey Avery Artist Statement
Tracey Avery and Tamana untitled 2023 photocopy transfer, cotton thread Artist’s Book 42 x 29.7 cm (closed)
When I first read what Tamana had written to Gali Weiss about the Taliban taking over government in Afghanistan, I made a note to summarize my strongest impressions from her message. I wrote: ‘she remembers’. It then took me a long time to find ways to honour the gravity of Tamana’s harrowing experiences and the depth of emotions I felt, without describing or illustrating these experiences or words. Tamana’s full text speaks directly to her clear resolve to recall and record events, feelings and their significance. My artistic responses evolved to express this complexity in multiple ways, as I tried to hold her words as a listener, situated far away in my home on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria, Australia.
In essence, I have responded in ‘fragments’ of images, words, paper and thread. I was listening to Tamana’s words while feeling wide gaps between the fragments of my own comprehension. The artist books include most of the same images photographs I took of various native and non-native plants around my home. Minor variations between editions came from the process of photocopy transfer; shaking the oils of native Australian plants (Eucalyptus oil or Tea Tree oil), allowing the liquid to pool where it landed. Most of the physical rubbing was done using my grandmother’s wooden porridge spoon. Sewing a separate cover panel to the body of the artist book allowed me to make more efficient use of the sheet size of the paper, with less waste. The cover’s wide zig-zag stitch join, with random sections narrowing, seemed to echo the urgency and underlying strength that Tamana’s voice projects. I wanted to bring care, gentleness and love into the work, yet still work with images expressing themes of life, growth and death, connections and separations, that I also see in nature. For example, the grass seed head annotated like a botanical research specimen reflects my own scientific and curatorial background, and the notion that labelling parts of something can help to convey some meanings, but may limit our understanding of the whole. I could write more about the many associations I saw as the work emerged but my hope is that the fragments also provide space for viewers to make their own connections to Tamana’s experiences.
