SHE-zine

SHE ofmindandbody

7 February – 31 March 2023

This SHE-zine is dedicated to all Women. We particularly acknowledge our First Nations women from the Bunurong People and women from our immigrant, and refugee communities. All of whom are significant to the City of Greater Dandenong.

SHE ofmindandbody celebrates all women and honours their stories.

SHE of mind and body is exhibited on the lands of the Bunurong People. We acknowledge and pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging. We recognise and respect their continuing connections to climate, Culture and Country.

The She exhibitions, held annually at the Walker Street Gallery since 1997,1 cross a wide landscape of changing attitudes and eras in feminist art in Australia and globally. Behind the She exhibition stand important histories of both artmaking and the sensemaking around art. At the micro level of the event itself, She longevity as a repeated fixture featuring women artists has few parallels in Australian public artspaces’ yearly programmes. Numerous initiatives since the 1970s have foregrounded and nurtured women’s art making in Australia,2 but most were shortlived as mainstream artistic enthusiasm for women’s art ebbed and flowed across the decades in line with cultural and intellectual fashions. In the 1990s when She launched, direct expressions of feminists were somewhat outlying cultural practices. At art school students pursuing feminist influences did so independent of tutors and lecturers, often in clusters of like minded friends.

Feminism found a congenial home at the Walker Street Gallery. The She project began as porous and democratic, with an open call to women artists.3 This impetus was practical as much as ideological. Prizes for exhibitors included slots for solo exhibitions at other public artspaces on Melbourne’s outer fringes, including the Frankston Art Centre, Burrinja Cultural Centre and in Berwick.4, tangibly acknowledging the often-ignored periurban art cultures. Alongside She, the Walker Street Community Art Centre organised symposia discussing issues facing women entering the art world. She also filled a space in Melbourne left empty with the closure of the Women’s Gallery in 1995 and its cycle of International Women’s Day exhibitions co-curated with the Women’s Art Register since 1990. Following a curatorial decision in 2016, from 2017 She was no longer a self-nominated call for artists without dealer representation, but an invitational showcase of noteworthy women exhibitors from Melbourne art schools’ graduate shows. In effect the changed structure documented the revised intellectual currency of feminism from the later 2000s.5

1 The Walker Street Gallery’s published 1999 calendar in the State Library of Victoria artists files claims that She – The Cat’s Mother was the 4th She exhibition suggesting a 1996 starting date – or it could be a typo for the 3rd. An internal document in the gallery’s files suggests that 1997 was the first She exhibition

2 Louise R Mayhew “Forty years and counting” Art Monthly Australia 286 Summer 2015/2016, 33-40. Only two groups have survived into the present from the white heat of 1970s feminist activism: the Sydney Print Circle founded in 1970 and the Women’s Art Register founded in 1975 and based

in Melbourne but collecting and collating documentation of women’s art nationally. From the 1970s to the 2000’s dwindling financial and institutional support condemned many feminist initiatives in Australia to often wither after impressive launches

3 Browsing through ephemera relating to the Walker Street Gallery suggests that open calls were a favoured modality to enable accessibility and diversity in a number of its projects. From several hundred submissions thirty or forty were selected for the She exhibitions.

Each year offers a new theme and or subtitle – from the iconic She the Cat’s Mother, 1999 to the new age She – the Spirit of Life, 2003. In 2023, the theme SHE of mind and body binds highly diverse practices and materialities. All the works and artists speak to the theme of women’s identity and experience, either at the physical level of actual bodies from Ema Shin’s meticulously crafted body parts that invoke awe for the handwork and a sense of preciousness and reverence, or Neroli Henderson and Vonda Keji’s use of photography on textile substrate to reclaim the representation of women from the ubiquity of slur and stereotype to Dan Bain’s raw, unflinching tally of women killed from ‘male’ violence in Australia. Other works reflect the curatorial theme in a more allusive consideration of the nature of acculturated female experience set within a dynamic of community, either of cultural origins and practices or in terms of intangibles of structures, linkages and processes such as Caroline Phillips and Kate V M Sylvester

Textiles highlight multiple nodes of connection to feminist practice, as this medium became a core referent for feminist art in the 1970s. The highly influential and - unusually for a feminist text – much reprinted Rozsika Parker’s Subversive Stitch repositioned female craftwork, its techniques and inheritances, and redirected them to contemporary and political ends. Textile work, both as process and object, recorded female agency that was missing from traditional written and paper-based repositories of public life. Parker’s jamming of traditional hierarchies is exemplified by Anna Farago, Neroli Henderson and Ema Shin, who start with traditional techniques, but deploy them with intellectually and politically expanded meanings. Revisiting Parker’s theories synergises with the current decentring of a transatlantic London-Paris-New York axis of [white, male] authority as default.

4 Browsing through ephemera relating to the Walker Street Gallery suggests that open calls were a favoured modality to enable accessibility and diversity in a number of its projects. From several hundred submissions thirty or forty were selected for the She exhibitions.

5 This exhibition follows a different template, presenting a curated selection of artists, many of whom have had national and international level exposure as well as profesional artists from Dandenong and surrounding suburbs

6 Rozsika Parker The subversive stitch : embroidery and the making of the feminine London: Women’s Press 1984, the book was reprinted several times in the 1980s, updated by the author and republished with new material including discussions of Tracey Emmen and Louise Bourgeois in 1996, and reprinted after Parker’s death in 2010 and again 2019, an unusually number of reprints for a radical feminist book. It is also seen as a pivotal text for the rise of craftivism, and Joseph McBinn has recently published Queering the Subversive Stitch, London: Bloomsbury 2021 which applies Parker’s mix of craft and social histories to the complex story of male textile practice and how men have subverted the constricting stereotypes of modern masculinity through textiles.

Nusra Latif Qureshi’s practice and her collaboration with Anna Farago offers a timely reminder that many cultures, media and artforms are informed by histories and paradigms that are as complex and extensive as Western art metanarratives. These much-repeated first world stories often ignore Indigenous People and voices: an aspect countered by Blackgin (Georgia MacGuire)’s presence and work.

Other She artists reference a more conceptual, intellectual use of textiles drawn from abstraction and mid [20th] century questioning of conventional boundaries of material and format of sculpture and artworks. Textiles challenged the physically hard sculptural norms of metal and stone. Sculptors Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois often favoured temporary, fragile, fugitive constructions and used textiles without the overtones of museological revivals. Caroline Phillips, perhaps, most directly references this feminist genealogy in She. Her use of cast offs and repurposing foregrounds late capitalism’s promiscuous waste of resources and adds a social undertone to works that lack slogans or analog referents. Forms and surfaces infer bodies and metaphors of the feminine and often depict connections, links and multiplicity to imply community and the relational. Kate V M Sylvester likewise questions materiality and consumption via redeployment. She draws a transfigurative aesthetic merit from the previously discarded and dismissed, whilst invoking the ghosts and detritus of both prior use and users, yet also capturing traces of intensive delicate handwork.

Chaco Kato presents another major tranche of contemporary textile practice that deploys textiles architecturally to create structures that capture and inform space, provoking questions about spatial

inhabitation and organisation. The expanded public scale of her works also interrogate the preconception that textiles (and thus women makers) are demure, private and essentially introspective, positioned outside public culture. Concurrently, Vonda Keji reminds the audience that textiles as a medium of commentary, reaction and expression, via dress and accessorising, have always been scaled to and sited on the body as a public projection.

Feminism and textiles are both often assumed to be delimited by certain boundaries, disciplinary expectations and contexts, yet here they resonate across multiple practices and catchments. The controversies and intense emotions and reactions that Dan Bain’s Lost Petition generates, reminds all attending SHE of mind and body that feminism is not irrelevant, has not passed its use-by date or achieved its goals in a world of teal candidates jamming conservative Australian electorates, or women of colour attaining high executive positions in the US government. Feminism remains entirely necessary whilst constantly questioned and rejected in public cultural domains.

The She exhibition returns to the Walker Street Gallery after three years of disruptions. Viewers of the exhibition ought not to take the public presence of either gallery spaces or artworks for granted. Let us acknowledge the dedication and tenacity of the Walker Street Gallery staff and their municipal supporters, and equally the artists for continuing in the long legacy of She exhibitions and allowing them to live for its audiences. SHE of mind and body.

Juliette Peers

Art and design historian, writer, curator, teacher and committed feminist.

Dans Bain

www.dansbain.com

Danielle Bain is an inter-disciplinary artist, who focuses on social justice, inclusion, and personal narratives. Her practice is collaborative, bringing depth and texture to the stories that emerge. Bain’s work is broadly accessible, and holds audiences in immersive contemplation, leaving echoes in the consciousness long after viewing.

Content Warning: This project mentions violence against women and children. This project also contains the names of some deceased Indigenous women and children lost to male violence.

The Lost Petition is a 30-metre fabric shroud listing women and children who have lost their lives to male violence in Australia since 2008 and is an ongoing project.

These women and children can no longer vote, they have unjustly lost their right for representation and to have their voices heard by our government. Their right to suffrage, that was fought for and won by brave women, did not protect them from male violence.

Please note: This work is underpinned by the research by Sherele Moody of The Red Heart Campaign and the Australian Femicide and Child Death Map.

Opposite Image: The Lost Petition, cotton bed sheets, 2021 – ongoing.

Anna Farago

www.annafarago.com

Anna Farago is an artist and educator living on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne. Frequently collaborating with fellow artists and local communities, Farago’s investigations are animated by feminist art histories, craft traditions, the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and experience of place.

Woven into the fold

Collaboration between Anna Farago and Nusra Latif Qureshi

Fundamentally, the work evolved from talking about sharing of materials - from scraps of fabric to finished sewn pieces and printed images on velvet. We talked about reuse of remnant clothing, memory and care, particularly in relation to our families, mothers and children. Layering of conversations lead to the layering of fabric; combinations of colours that were reminiscent of times past emerged as the palette for the work.

We met through our children, and as artist mothers we have found common ground, companionship, and support. We talk and make together, skill share, discuss books, intercultural and intergenerational, life cycles, and challenges. These and more personal events are embodied and woven into the fold of the work.

Opposite Image: Panels from Woven into the fold, Cotton fabric and thread, 2023.

SHE Writing Competition

Winner - Open Category: Maryanne Graham

SHE who can.

I am she who can. Born to a stolen mother. Told who to be.

I am she.

A whisper barely heard. A shadow slipping by. A song with no sound and wings that won’t fly. Quiet. Small.

Broken. Oppressed. I have birthed the living and buried the dead.

I am love ill-timed. Compartmentalised. A burden. An ache. A beautiful mistake.

I exist.

I listen.

I love. I hate.

I dream. I hope. I scream. I shake. I am lost. I am found. I am here. I am not.

I am silence and sound.

I am void. I am quashed. I am everything I’ll never be.

I am all I can feel, and all I can see. All of this is all of me. From this place, I watch.

I feel, I breathe. On the ground, in the dirt, with memories.

Not of times gone past, but a life unknown.

My spirit is calling my sore heart home.

I recognise the place I stand. To face the fear, I understand, takes strength. A strength not of my own, but born from women long ago. Resilient and strong, the stories go. Resilient and strong, the bloodlines flow.

What fire destroys; time will heal. The storm will pass, the sun concealed, will shine.

And I will learn to smile again from deep within this pain. To know oneself is strength discerned. Innate possibilities. Love unlearned. The power of one, is the power of ‘we’.

I am she who can rise. I am she. She is me.

Neroli Henderson

Neroli Henderson’s artwork forms an introspective social commentary. This poignant, sometimes controversial work explores the human struggle, our lack of control and political events from a uniquely feminine viewpoint.

Created for the wall, but in structure a quilt, this subversive use of traditional women’s work juxtaposes often with harsh art statements. Photographs gain new life when printed large scale onto silk and covered in intensive free machine embroidery—creating rich and elaborate background patterns, a world holding the figure as if floating in space.

The nude female figure features prominently in many works as a timeless façade, vulnerable and raw.

Confinement

People often seek to curtail traits they do not relate to in others. Society as a whole reinforces this with stereotypes across all media.

We are seen as being “too” one thing or another.

Words are hidden throughout the background stitching.

Opposite Image: Confinement. Quilting & giclee print on silk habotai, 2019.

Chaco Kato

www.chacokato.com

Chaco Kato’s practice exists in a state of constant encounters: encounters with new spatial situations, encounters with new social contexts, and encounters with new materials and processes.

Parallel to this, recurring sites of inquiry revolve around social, psychological and environmental systems and structures. With a particular focus on the erosion of binary approaches to the world, challenging the artist / non-artist hierarchy and collapsing material hierarchies. Kato would like to keep challenging herself to create works that can address these issues by exploring the depth of the language of textile practice merging with the freedom of drawings’ practice.

Image opposite : Colour Study. Cotton and Acrylic threads on timber batons, 2023.

SHE Writing Competition

Winner - Under 18 category: Ananya Khatry Liberty

It begins.

It begins, with a newborn crying for her mother. “Congratulations! It’s a girl!” they announce. The faux cheeriness in their voices signals anything but. It’s more of a condemnation, really. Having a daughter, whom the world roots against since the moment of her birth. It takes everything for the mother not to crumple up in defeat, so she holds her child close and they both fall asleep, locked in a timeless embrace.

The girl grows, and she sees. She witnesses the injustices that her mother faces. The constant subordination to any man, words brushed off as irrelevant. Soon she feels it, the unfairness. It begins small; teachers overlook her in class, paying more attention to the boys. “What use is it sending a girl to school?” they snicker. Soon the inequality grows, snowballing into a nightmare. Being forced to quit school and take care of her younger brothers, she has her freedom, her life, put on the back-burner for her family. She witnesses her brothers grow; from kind young boys grasping her hand while being walked to school, to prickly men who care only for their kind. Crying herself to sleep on many nights, the girl dreams of an education, but more of a happy, loving and complete family.

The girl is hurt, but in truth, she feels more heartbroken for her mother.

How must it feel, for the child that would bawl in your absence, to end up treating you as just another household object? She wonders if this will happen with her own children in the future. A few years later, she is married off to an older man. Kept at home and silenced, cast into the role of the perfect housewife. Life is miserable, yet still, she pushes on. As she slaves each day away, she searches for peace. And she finds reprieve. She finds it in her sleep, in dreams that always slip just out of her reach.

Never in reality.

She, who dreams of a world where she will be seen as an equal.

It ends.

It ends, with another newborn girl’s first cry. This time, the doctor congratulates the mother warmly, the rest of the staff breaking out in applause at the news of the successful delivery. There isn’t a single unkind expression in the room.

As the mother cradles her baby in her arms, she makes a vow. She promises she will raise a girl who won’t just live but will thrive. A girl who will never be bound to society’s expectations and is free to chase her own dreams. After fleeing her own marriage, the mother is prepared to fight anyone who gets in her way.

And as the cycle of pain finally shatters, the mother realises something else. She won’t just raise a daughter. She will raise a warrior, a scholar, a leader. She who can.

Vonda Keji

Vonda Keji is a visual artist from Melbourne that works with an array of mediums such as paintings, illustrations and photography. Her works utilize surrealism, colours, symbolism and social issues to aver the beauty and complexity of her African identity in addition to speaking on issues that affect the African diaspora. She’s heavily influenced by the political motivation of the black arts movements. Through her work she seeks to breakdown society’s misconceptions.

Societal Cracks

As women, we are forced to wear many different hats in society. Each hat multifaceted and distinct in nature impacting how we interact with the world and other people. My work seeks to explore the algorithmic beauty standards and facade that has been influenced by this social media driven society we live in. It is about showing the beauty of being raw and unfiltered. The challenges brought by social media and more recently the COVID 19 pandemic has only amplified what society expects from women and correspondingly what women expect for themselves.

Opposite Image: Societal Cracks. Photographic print on linen with embellishments, 2022.

SHE Writing Competition

Under 18 Finalists: Grace Bushby

She of mind and body, the imperfects engraved into her beautiful skin like a Renaissance artwork, hung up for all to see.

She, her mind so strong like the shine of the stars on a quiet night. Her body carved by Greek goddesses, blessed by Aphrodite herself. The moon reflects like fireflies in her eyes and her smile makes me feel the warmth of a cosy campfire. Every time she looks at me, my heart bursts into a flame so strong, as the butterflies circle around me, I fluster.

The places she brightens up, awestruck by the woman she is. She doesn’t believe these things, however, taught by the harmful shadows of life as her inner beautiful hides behind the soft look in her eyes. I dream of a day where she remembers how wonderful she is, how she strings the stars in the sky with every step. To her, she is nothing, her smile crooked and gross, laugh loud and annoying. But to me?

Her smile is mesmerising like the night sky and her laugh like a song, forever stuck in my mind, replaying on a vinyl. I could never get sick of it. And she means everything to me. Her beauty blooms deeper within herself, her kindness blesses everyone around her. Yes, she.

My heart swells and blossoms like flowers during spring, she.

How I love to see her confidence rise like an eternal sunrise, soft shades of pink, orange, and yellow touch my heart, melting it like the first summer day after an unforgiving winter.

I wish to make her feel how she makes me, happy like your favourite memory. Her arms are comfort, they are home. Safe and secure like the fluffiest blanket, knitted by cupid.

She is strong, her mind’s battles have worn her down, but she doesn’t give in. Tears carved lines into her face, like the rain on stormy days. She.

Love guarded by the walls of unforgiving, my dreams long to nest in her heart. To open a door into a world of comfort, of love.

I wish to take down that wall piece by piece with the embrace of mine.

I wish to show her that it’s alright, that I’ll love her unconditionally no matter her flaws or fears.

I wish to wipe away her sorrows and help her become the best version of herself.

The winding road of life is rocky, but I wish to be her safety net, to be part of her journey.

To care for her when she is hurt, to love when she feels loveless. She.

SHE Writing Competition

Under 18 Finalists: Milla Walker

SHE who dreams

My sheets are red, my favourite colour. I can’t sleep with the sounds of the city and her lucent lights blurring in through the window Mum insists on leaving ajar. She likes the fresh air. My legs are numb as I rise, glancing in the mirror above my bed. My eyes are warm and trusting, my cheeks still covered in purple from last night when Dad pulled out his face paints. The sound of my parents preparing dinner sends alarm prickling through me as Mum bangs the steak in the next room. I’ve never understood why they cook at such a late hour.

Stella and Pria lie huddled together in bed on the other side of the room, my little sister already lost in slumber. Pria can’t sleep without one of us older girls beside her. She gets nightmares as frequently as I fail to find rest.

“You should get some sleep, Mita.” Stella’s voice, soothing yet grounded, brings me back to the present. I manage a nod and reach for the window’s handle, gently pulling it shut before slipping back under my sheets. They smell familiar – homely. But none of it is real.

I’ve never liked the colour red. It reminds me too much of my sheets, eternally spattered in blood. I can’t sleep with the thought of this city and the truth of my captivity, a haze of blurring lights seeping endlessly through the window Mum tried to jump from last week.

Stella and I stopped her at the last moment, but a part of me –embedded in shadow and twisted fear – wishes we hadn’t. Maybe she’d be happier. Maybe we’d all be happier if we’d done the same.

My legs ache and buckle weakly as I rise from the floor, casting aside my single sheet. I catch a hold of my reflection in the window; my gaze is veiled in shadow, swooping black bags burrowed beneath my hollow eyes. I haven’t slept in days. My entire face is laced with bruises from last night, stained a murky purple in the places he struck me. I can hear the muffled sounds of my parents in the next room, a body being slammed against the wall again and again. I wish I’d let her jump.

My two sisters lie on the old mattress in the corner, Stella’s arms wrapped around Pria as my little sister’s eyes brim with salt and anguish. We don’t let Pria sleep alone, in case Dad bursts in in the middle of the night. I look back at the window, the long drop below. And I wish I was falling.

“Mita.” Stella’s voice, fragmented and raw, brings me back to the present. “You can’t.” She breaks off, her tears glinting like fallen stars beneath the severed lights. Silence.

“You can’t.”

I manage a single nod before I start shaking. Trembling uncontrollably. I pull the window shut as quickly as my fingers allow and bury myself back under the sheet. It smells like blood. Like home.

Blackgin (Georgia MacGuire)

Blackgin’s practice builds on the artist’s modality, which focuses on the inter-connections between culture, human rights, feminism and flesh. Her works often incorporate natural materials and ultimately centre on the relationship with Country and its voice. One that is indivisible from the artist. For using materials is not only a vehicle for honouring Country, but it is also the flesh of Country.

The imposition of gender is a re-imagining of previous works that are based on intersectionality and her Indigenous voice. The work draws on the flesh qualities of the materials, a collection of paperbark sculptures that are bodily representations of female genitalia. It further explores the taboos and cultural ideas of Women’s Business and how those ideas can often conflict with Non-Indigenous values around sexual and reproductive health. Similarly, this material expression speaks of prejudice and its impact faced by Indigenous women in Australia.

Opposite Image: The imposition of gender. Paper bark, gum nut, medium and polymer clay, possum skin, oil paint, cotton thread, polymer fill, acrylic adhesive and fabric medium, 2015 – ongoing.

SHE Writing Competition

Open Finalist: Emily Robertson

SHE who did SHE who can … did Could she?

They said she could, that she must. She was tired, depleted, mind and body. It seemed her very soul was waving farewell as she laid there. With a groan she forced herself to sit upright, the ache and heaviness spread to her limbs, reaching her fingertips and starting its return journey to her equally exhausted brain.

‘Would you like to breastfeed him?’ asked the nurse. She nodded numbly. That was expected right? The nurse handed her the delicately wrapped bundle, pink squashed alien face peering out the top at her. How on earth did she do this again? This hadn’t been in the pre-birth lessons.

The nurse bustled around her offering words of encouragement that didn’t permeate her brain. The tears were threatening to fall as she struggled to get him to latch, panic flaring, perhaps unreasonably, that her child would starve in the hours since he’d been born. But her brain couldn’t hear that right now. Eventually her sweet baby that she’d been pining for, for the last two years latched, and it hurt. Was she doing something wrong? Where was this feeling of overwhelming love people talked about? She knew she loved him but where was the joy? The Insta worthy post to gush about him? Was she broken? Could she do this?

The thoughts swirled on an endless spool, drowning her. Her baby with his squashed little alien face happily fed,

while she sat hunched in pain over him at the bad latch and the overwhelming feeling of being a failure already.

The nurse left and the tears came silently. The sobs suppressed as best she could.

‘First baby?’ asked the voice from the other bed, obscured by the curtain pulled between them. She hurriedly wiped her face on her sleeve and cleared her throat.

‘No, he’s my second’ she replied, shame weighing so heavy on her tired shoulders. How on earth was she going to manage two? The plans she’d laid out seemed to vanish like smoke as she tried to grasp them.

‘You can do this mumma’ said the voice firmly. She felt annoyed at the words, “you got this” was bandied around so much, what did it even mean now?

‘Yeah, I know, I just….’ Her words failed her. Just what? She was sinking here on this bed. It felt like she was drowning right next to a lifeguard.

‘You need to tell the Doctor when she comes in’ the voice behind the curtain told her.

‘Why do you say that?’ she asked, wiping again at tears that continued to leak.

‘Because you have to do it all’ the voice simply replied, ‘So you must be ok.’

She gently laid her precious bundle in his clear crib, his face turned towards her as he quietly snuffled, still getting used to using his lungs. As she waited for the doctor she laid down and watched him sleep, drifting off herself, thoughts settling as she decided.

I can ask for help.

SHE Writing Competition

Open Finalist: Raelene Gooch

SHE who dreams

I want to speak, without my words being stolen. For my sentence to be full, accepted and heard. My views not drowned by bellowing sounds. I dream to speak in sentences full . I want to feel, without guilt for my softness. For my anger to rage without cyclical reason. My emotions not viewed as a feminine trait. I dream for permission to feel as I do.

I want to pause, between never ending roles. A break between work and chores of home. My need to take time for myself in this race. I dream of time to exhale and sit still.

I want to choose my attire without fear. For the fabrics that drape me don’t define who I am. My clothes not used as an invite of crime. I dream to dress in the way that I choose. I want time between selfless care of others. From rearing my own to nursing the olds. My love runs deep but this burden is too heavy. I dream for support in the roles that I’m placed.

I want to decide what I do with my body. For it’s my true vessel and I decide who resides. My choices need not be justified or atoned. I dream of autonomy for my body is mine.

I want to be me without fitting in ‘nicely’. For no labels are needed to tick that square box. My essence is me and the people I love. I dream of a world where I am enough.

Caroline Philips

www.carolinephillips.art

Through the medium of sculpture, Caroline Phillips’ studio practice explores contemporary feminist aesthetics through investigations of the minimalist object.

Drawing on the relationship between hard and soft forms, representing the abstracted body, the sculptures investigate the stresses surrounding the body in the built environment, and our perceptions of tension and release, and their effects. Phillips is interested in reconfiguring relationships of power, sexual politics and embodied experience to re/present the relational art object as a feminist object. Through modes of connection and inter-relation in both her methodology and outcomes, her work reimagines an ethical feminist future.

Opposite Image: Punching Bag. Recycled punching bag, recycled plastics and textiles, foam rubber, synthetic textiles, rubber, and cotton, 2023.

Nusra Latif Qureshi

www.nusraqureshi.com

Qureshi is a trained Mughal miniaturist painter, who has developed a rich, contemporary visual language that pushes boundaries. She appropriates imagery and motifs and repositions them into works questioning stereotypes. The works speak of an historical collage layered with fragments and assertions, ones that question the past by constructing a new narrative.

Woven into the fold

Fundamentally, the work evolved from talking about sharing of materials - from scraps of fabric to finished sewn pieces and printed images on velvet. We talked about reuse of remnant clothing, memory and care, particularly in relation to our families, mothers and children. Layering of conversations lead to the layering of fabric; combinations of colours that were reminiscent of times past emerged as the palette for the work.

We met through our children, and as artist mothers we have found common ground, companionship, and support. We talk and make together, skill share, discuss books, intercultural and intergenerational, life cycles, and challenges. These and more personal events are embodied and woven into the fold of the work.

Collaboration between Nusra Latif Qureshi and Anna Farago

SHE Writing Competition

Open Finalist: Jude Aquilina

She Who Discovers…

realises that love is a supermarket –where you go when stocks are running low list in hand looking for specials, sometimes take home a bargain but soon realise there was a reason it was going out cheap. Next trip she is wiser, looking for fresh healthy sustenance. She studies the packaging, wishes she could taste before she buys, tries to select wisely – the look of the label, the ingredients, the use-by-date.

But again, the packet mix seems far from what the label spruiked. Perhaps it’s her, she thinks, perhaps she’s not following the cooking instructions. Tired of so many trips to the supermarket she decides to shop online. A sparkling array of goods smile from her screen. She presses for delivery, waits anxiously for them to arrive but there’s a discrepancy between picture and product.

Some are easily returned, others she tries to post back but there’s no return address and they hang around smelling off. Then one day she pops in to her local corner deli and sees a fresh gourmet meal, the sort she wants to take straight home. She keeps going back for more until she learns the recipe and it serves her well for the rest of her life.

SHE Writing Competition

Open Finalist: Mietta Postlethwaite

SHE who dreams

Their feet moved fast. Too fast. Tapping on the concrete footpath in front of me, their quickening pace keeping time with my pounding heartbeat. I tried to control my breathing. In out, in out. This was meant to be easy.

‘Come on’, I said to myself, ‘all you have to do is walk. Just put one foot in front of the other. Don’t even think about it.’

The problem was, this only made me think about it more. I could hear the buzzing of the needle from my view outside the glass. The crowd rushed forward on their way to work, their suits swishing past me as I looked beyond them. I breathed deeply moving forward. I pushed the door open and was greeted by the ringing of a bell. It was like the bell was announcing my arrival to the world, hello, I am here… and I am scared as hell. I shuffled over to the counter and was greeted by a man whose skin looked like the pages of a colouring book.

‘Ready?’ He asked.

‘Yes’, I lied.

The needle vibrated against my skin. The buzzing reverberated through my outer into my soul. I could feel the

unpleasant sensation trace the picture into my skin. I couldn’t believe that after everything I had been through a needle as small as this unnerved me. I closed my eyes and thought about the future, and what this symbolised for me.

Rejuvenation…a new beginning. ‘All done’, the man said. I opened my eyes slowly, slipping off the chair and walking towards the mirror. I was hesitant. What if I didn’t like it?

I breathed deeply, tilting my head towards the reflection before me. The floral vines followed the twists and turns of the scar across my chest. The flowers covered the signs of cancer, transforming the red, puckered skin where my breasts once were into a blooming rose full of life and hope. I never had to see that scar again. The visual reminder of my anguished thoughts for the future had been erased. I traced the fine lines with my finger, feeling every incision bloom into something beautiful as I did. This was a badge of honour just for me. I had survived.

‘Thank you’, I said through a veil of tears.

She who dreams lives. She who dreams ….. survives.

Ema Shin

www.emashin.org

Women have both many issues and pleasures with the organ represented by Ema Shin’s hand-woven tapestry Soft Alchemy (Womb for Everyone). From this organ women experience menstruation, child birth, menopause, contraception and more. In some countries women are not permitted to control their bodies and must face complex social situations, decisions and consequences determined by others. A woman’s body should belong to herself. Through this work I would like to send a feeling of warmth and positive care to everyone.

Body organs are important symbols of life which represent many emotions. These shapes that are central in my artwork represent fertility, sensitivity, and femininity.

Opposite Image: Soft Alchemy (Womb for Everyone) Woven Tapestry, cotton, wool, synthetic yarn and wire, 2022.

Kate V M Sylvester

www.katevmsylvester.com

Sylvester’s textile work created from recycled t-shirts explores the extraordinary potential of the ordinary. An iconic, globally used piece of clothing that has the potential to be elevated to the realm of conceptual art. Meticulously de-threaded by hand, Sylvester reveals the masses of fabric used in a single garment. This revelation enables a new consideration for the potential of what we take for granted.

I’ll show you what I’m made of is an interpretive dance with an installed de-threaded t-shirt. The nature of the deconstructed weave is utilised as a representation of the hidden strength within something deemed restricted by its own fragility. Forced to navigate the restrictions of the environment in which they find themselves, countless women are capable of extraordinary feats of adaption. Pinned up against the wall, due to cultural, psychological, emotional or financial restrictions, the pressures of daily survival against all odds. Navigating the ebbs and flows of an abuser, unable to find liberation or relief. Living with chronic female illness & finding the pathways to proper diagnosis, care and counsel. Insurmountable expectations of achievement to do it all & be the best you possibly can be for all your followers to see. The world is going through a major shift. The recognition of female liberation in countries like Iran are now centre stage & the rise of female empowerment is making its mark for generations to come. No matter the circumstances, no matter the time it takes, we are finding our way. For every woman. We are stronger than you think.

Opposite Image: I’ll show you what I’m made of. Recycled cotton T-shirt, 2023.

Durga, Where Are You?

By Dr. Priya Srinivasan

I was in my class dancing to the song Simhasanasthithe about the Goddess Durga, who rode a lion into battle I felt powerful taking on her 8 armed body and using weapons to destroy demons.

I was walking in the dark alleyway in Richmond. My parents said be careful. Don’t walk alone. We moved here so you could get a good education and a good life.

I was waiting, eating, sleeping, ironing, walking driving, showering, running, cooking, chopping, watering, sitting, cleaning, commuting when it happened to me

Shops, bathroom, car, office, kitchen, station, train, home, bedroom, city, tram, toilet, alleyway, village, bus where it happened to me

Something was wrong Durga Where are you?

Yaa saa shumbha nishumbha daithya samani

I killed the asura Nishumbha, by my sword. His brother Shumbha came crying to me, saying he could not fight so many of me.

I laughed. I withdrew my many selves from battle back into my body,

I became one and battled him. I pierced the trident into the heart of Shumbha. I killed him.

Excerpt performed during SHE of Mind and Body opening and International Women’s Day Event, Wednesday 8 March 2023

Programming

SHE Creative Writing

Sista Baskets

Meet celebrated children’s author and architect Bic Walker for a creative writing workshop, where you will learn techniques to improve your writing.

Walker escaped war torn Vietnam at the age of four and her experience as a refugee was the catalyst for her first book A Safe Place to Live.

Springvale Library

25 January 6.30pm-7.30pm

Dandenong Library

7 February 6.30pm-7.30pm

Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre 17 February 10am-12pm

Join Aunty Bronwyn, proud Gunditjmara woman of the Kirrae Whurrong clan. In this workshop, you will learn traditional weaving techniques passed down to her from her grandmother Georgina and mother Zelda Couzens. Sista baskets celebrates the coming together of two parties.

Embroider Your Story

28 February, 7pm-8.30pm Online

Join us for this workshop and create a piece of embroidered artwork with your own story.

Artist Ema Shin will teach you how to collage appliqué and stitch using preloved or your favourite fabric to make unique artwork.

Programming

March Art Series: FANTASANIMAL

Join acclaimed and respected artist Nusra Latif Qureshi for an enchanting workshop. Nusra references exquisite details from 17th Century Mughal painting, while interjecting contemporary images. Her art is collected around the world. In this workshop, explore the technique of tracing on paper and enhance fine motor skills. These tracings of animals, birds and insects will be developed into strange fantasy creatures. You will be using watercolours to finish these highly detailed images.

Dandenong Library

14 March 6.30pm-8.30pm

Springvale Library

21 March 6.30pm-8.30pm

SHE Reads

SHE reads is a free session for young art fans and families. Join artist and writer Tai Snaith for a story-time session that highlights female stories of empowerment. Not to mention the fun activities at the gallery.

Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre

12 March 10am

Thoughts on Women in the Art Game

Join Dr Rebecca Coates, an accomplished museum director, curator, public speaker, writer and lecturer, as she shares her thoughts on Women in the Art Game. Rebecca has directed the development and opening of SAM (Shepparton Art Museum): an iconic regional precinct and building, reinvigorating its artistic program and collection strategy, while taking its fundraising to unprecedented levels. Rebecca has worked extensively in Australia and overseas. She is a leading advocate for arts and culture, Indigenous engagement and diversity and inclusion.

Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre

16 March 6pm-7pm