An integral element within my studio-based research includes an exploration of my Dutch origins by taking my art practice to the Netherlands. This is important because I feel that I should explore my own culture and forge a creative connection with my heritage, as fibre art in Australia is intrinsically aligned with connection to land and culture (Keller, C, 2010).
Therefore, I am currently undertaking an art residency with the OBRAS Art foundation in the Netherlands. This is a consequential motivation for the title of my PHD thesis, Under Water Basket Weaving. The imagery that ‘Underwater’ suggests isn’t far from the truth, considering the proximity of the Netherlands below sea level. As an artist in residence with the OBRAS foundation I am living in a 100-year-old mansion in the township of Renkum, which is within the municipality of the City of Arnhem. The name Arnhem means place of many eagles.
A large expanse of land in Northern Australia was named Arnhem Land by Matthew Flinders during his circumnavigation of Australia, after a vessel of the Dutch East India Company. The Arnhem was blown off course and touched and mapped land near what is now known as Gove Peninsula. (Evans,1995)My art practice is immensley informed by collaborative art projects where I have spent time in Arnhem land which is rich in indigenous cultural and fibre practice. It is apt that the art residency was located within the municipality of the city of Arnhem. I am embracing this through interweaving the histories of the two contrasting places, which are connected by history and name. The contrasts and similarities between these places has become the foundation of my creative practice whilst in the Netherlands. Fibre sculptured figures made from plants found in the surrounding parklands and rivers are emerging. I am also documenting the leaves and plants found in the area using cyanotype processes. This is an example of how my creative and practical research is consistently supported and influenced by the both ways philosophy, which essentially involves an interweaving of Indigenous and non-indigenous histories to digest post-colonial issuesMy favorite artist and mentor, Pamela Crofts, laments the importance of an embracement of the both ways philosophy if reconciliation is ever to become a reality in Australia.
Always remember that what makes you all Australian is the fact that you live on this land, on our ancestral lands and with our creation stories. Lastly what makes you Australian, is in fact your interactions with us, the First Nations peoples of this land- in the past now and in the future It is what makes you different from your ancestors whose spirits lie in other lands. We are what help to make you, Australian. It is what gives you belonging on and to this land. (Croft cited in Mellor and Haebich 2002 p.225)
http://www.obras-art.org
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