Beginning again and again and again (繰りかえし、繰りかえし、そしてまた始める)

Artists: Satomi KASHIO, Dr Agnieszka Golda and Dr Boni Cairncross
Curator: Dr Boni Cairncross

Work-in-Process images on Instagram: @textiles_project

Japanese artist Satomi KASHIO, arrived in Australia prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic to pursue an artist residency program at the University of Wollongong focusing on traditional Japanese techniques and contemporary screen-printing processes. As the pandemic transformed the conditions of art making, the artists adapted their textile art processes by utilising accessible materials, such as natural dyes and found domestic materials. Online platforms such as Instagram and Google Docs created a way to foster collaborative practice-based research, despite physical distance. With the TAEM gallery transforming into a site for experimentation that extended a type of call and response between the three artists and their evolving bodies of work.

Emerging from this experimental exhibition model is an ongoing conversation about textile art practice with a focus on natural dyes. Drawing on a breadth of knowledges developed through a range of field studies in Australia, Japan, Mexico and Poland, each artist has taken an approach to natural dyes as a departure point for their artworks. Underlying these investigations of natural dyes, are explorations of materiality, performativity, engagements with place and questions about the relationship the visible and invisible. Building over four weeks, this accumulative exhibition will be shared publicly as a digital exhibition, launching on 25 June 2020 at www.beginningagain-exhibition.com/

Image caption: Satomi KASHIO, Manifestations, 2020, wool, Natural dye (pittosporum, casuarina, eucalyptus microcorys, onion), texture paste, 340×330 cm