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The city that swings on its treasures, and the elite commentators that don’t see them

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The city that swings on its treasures, and the elite commentators that don’t see them

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The city that swings on its treasures, and the elite commentators that don’t see them | Garland Magazine

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Sary Zananiri ✿ Crossing seas and following stars

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Sary Zananiri ✿ Crossing seas and following stars

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Sary Zananiri ✿ Crossing seas and following stars | Garland Magazine

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Meredith Turnbull interviews Sary Zananiri on the shaping of Palestinian identity and visual culture through the lens of historic embroidery, revived in new work examining cultural disjunctures.

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Sarah Abu-Sharar ✿ Cultural resistance through traditional Palestinian storytelling

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Sarah Abu-Sharar ✿ Cultural resistance through traditional Palestinian storytelling

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Sarah Abu-Sharar ✿ Cultural resistance through traditional Palestinian storytelling | Garland Magazine

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Manila Zoo, Adriatico Street, Malate, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Sanctuary Reimagined: Unveiling spiritual rebirth and bicultural renewal

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Sanctuary Reimagined: Unveiling spiritual rebirth and bicultural renewal

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Sanctuary Reimagined: Unveiling spiritual rebirth and bicultural renewal | Garland Magazine

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Artspace Aotearoa Karangahape Road, Auckland Central, Auckland, New Zealand

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Birth, death, transformation, imagination and ways of telling stories: On Ngaroma Riley

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Birth, death, transformation, imagination and ways of telling stories: On Ngaroma Riley

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Hana Pera Aoake

Hana Pera Aoake explores the themes of birth, grief, and Indigenous sovereignty in a new work by Ngaroma Riley that fuses the Māori creation story of Hineahuone with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

It had seemed calm, but now electric shocks ricocheted through my body. I was eight hours into labour and words are inadequate to describe this feeling in my body. All at once primal and otherworldly, I felt the slippages between Te Ao Marama (the world of light) and the arms of Hinenuitepō (Atua/Goddess of death). Give me the fucking gas! How do people endure this?

During these contractions in November 2022, I thought about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which I had read a year earlier. The weather in Ōtepoti was dark and stormy and it was also in November that my 'creature'(my daughter), was born. Lying there deliriously, I recalled that the year before Shelley had had the idea for Frankenstein, she lost her first child, a baby girl born prematurely, who lived for two weeks and then died in the night. Shelley had thought her baby was only sleeping. In her diary on March 19, 1815, she wrote, "Dream that my little baby came to life again - that it had only been cold & that we rubbed it before the fire & it lived. Awoke and found no baby." She survived five pregnancies, but only one of her children made it to adulthood.

Years later, in these moments, I think of all the tūpuna (ancestors) in my whakapapa (genealogy, but also a means of understanding the world and how to live), birthing children alongside me. I often think of Mary Shelley and many others who have died during childbirth or who lost children, but also the capacity of our bodies and stories to transform.

/

In a newly commissioned artwork by Ngaroma Riley (Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri, Pākehā) at Artspace Aotearoa, we see a retelling of the story of Hineahuone (the first woman) through Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Leaning over a silver operating table, Ngaroma has created a large freestanding wooden tekoteko (an ancestor figure which is found in either freestanding form or attached to the gable of a whare hui or whare tupuna, an intricately carved meeting house) over a baby placed on a silver operating table. The tekoteko is a female Victor Frankenstein, but imbued within the nexus of the story of how Tāne Mahuta(the atua or god of forests) made the first wāhine tupuna (female ancestor), Hineahuone (the first woman). Fashioned out of kurawaka (red ochre), Hineahuone was the mother of Hinetītama, so perhaps the genderless baby on the operating table is Hinetītama. Hinetītama/the baby is a genderless being about to experience the 'spark of life', with the freestanding maternal Hineahuone (Frankenstein) figure holding a lightsaber ready to zap the motionless lying figure to life. The lightsaber also resembles a hand-cranked egg and cake mixer. Titled 'Tihei...mauri ora!' it refers to the Māori creation story when the first human (Hineahuone) was moulded from kurawaka (a kind of red clay) to form a wahine (woman). It is a commonly used phrase in whaikōrero (formal speeches), mihimihi (greetings, introductions), and karakia (prayer). Translations are tricky, but one way of describing 'Tihei...mauri ora!' would be as the breath or sneeze of life.

Tihei - sneeze
Mauri - life force, spirit
Ora - To be alive, well

The most commonly told account of this pūrākau (story) describes the atua, Tāne Mahuta, and his brothers, who determined that they must continue their whakapapa (literally means to layer, but describes genealogical relationships between people as being a part of the natural world), so they sought to find the uha or female element. Tāne sought out his mother, Papatūānuku (Earth mother), and moulded Hineahuone out of clay gifted to him by his mother. Tāne pressed his nose into the earth, breathed into her nose, and Hineahuone sneezed and was brought to life. This exchange of breath is a greeting known as a hongi, whereby two people press their noses together, allowing their breath to sync together and become one. Eventually, Hineahuone and Tāne had a daughter, Hinetītama. Tāne lay with his daughter and had children with her. When Hinetītama realised that her father was her lover, in her shame, she fled Te Ao Mārama (the land of light) and retreated to Te Pō. When parting from her father, Hinetītama asked that Tāne care for her children and mokopuna (grandchildren) , and at their death she would be their guardian. From this moment forward, she became known as Hinenuitepō (the goddess of death) and cares for the souls of all.

'Tihei...mauri ora!' is a hongi or exchange of breath between atua wāhine and Mary Shelley. Originally learning relief techniques in Japan, Ngaroma formally studied whakairo at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Blending both of her Pākehā and Māori heritage together, Ngaroma makes work which is joyful. This commission builds on other work, including a series of self-portraits of karetao (puppets), shown last year at HOEA! gallery in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Gisborne. In 'Tihei...mauri ora!', the large tekoteko is a wahine (woman), but Ngaroma considers Papatūānuku and Hineahuone as the grounding force of our whakapapa, not Tāne. The larger tekoteko has her hair, eyes and lips painted, while the baby is painted lightly with the colouring on the hair, lips and cheekbones, suggesting the light of life seeping slowly into the baby using the mauri of a light sabre. The baby is a baby; it has no gender, so the body is not inscribed with a gender role. Writing in her 1994 essay, Māori Women: Caught in the Contradictions of a Colonised Reality, the Māori academic, barrister and solicitor Ani Mikaere reminds us that gender ambiguity or neutrality is encoded within te reo Māori, given there are the gender neutral personal pronouns (ia) and the possessive personal pronouns (tāna/tōna). Ngaroma's first figurative sculptures were made in Japan, where she learnt to carve by creating a gender neutral bodhisattva. By continuing to make her work gender neutral, Ngaroma allows us to imagine ourselves in the forms she has carved and reimagine the stories of our ancestors.

So much can be said about the ways in which Tikanga Māori (Māori law and protocols) has been warped by colonisation. It seems obvious to say it, but many of the strictures which currently govern the production and dissemination of knowledge within whakairo, not unlike many other cultural practices, have been shaped by the patriarchal definitions of gender and labour that were imposed upon Māori communities through colonialism. Knowledge was lost in this process. Although I am by no means an expert on kaiwhakairo tikanga, I understand that women have always carved. In the essay Wahine Mau Whao: A woman's hand to the chisel by Rongomaiwahine writer, curator and historian, Tryphena O Rongomai Crackbell, recounts numerous examples of high-profile wahine Māori, such as Princess Te Kirihaehae Te Puea Herangi and Dame Whina Cooper, who were both the driving forces behind whare whakairo (carved meeting house) revitalisation in the early part of the twentieth-century, but also knew how to wield a chisel. Ngaroma is amongst a group of wāhine sharing resources and exchanging knowledge around whakairo, and it's exciting to think of the possibilities for ways of sharing stories centred around women and every other gender expression.

In 'Tihei...mauri ora!' myth merges with the first science fiction novel, revealing the stories of wāhine (Hineahuone, Hinetītama, Hinenuitepō, Mary Shelley) and produces a work where gender is transformed, or alleviated in favour of a state in which we can reflect the ways these women pushed back against the patriarchal circumstances of their lives. In Ngaroma's hands, we don't reflect upon the shame cast upon Hinetītama, but focus instead on Papatūānuku and her granddaughter's ability to transform, highlighting the resourcefulness of wāhine Māori to exercise rangatiratanga (self-determination). Tāne does not bring Hineahuone to life without the assistance of his mother. Hinetītama is born through Hineahuone. Ngaroma signals the power of women's bodies to produce life, and the centrality of women within all facets of Māori society and culture. This relationship is echoed in Te Reo Māori when we think of the dual meaning of words, such as whenua (land, placenta) and hapū (pregnancy), a familial community or kinship group. Ngaroma's work is not based on a theory of abstraction, but a theory grounded in and working towards liberatory conditions, because it celebrates and imagines life and our resilience as Indigenous people. Everything she carves is grounded and rooted in her own connection to whakapapa, which informs the winding turns of her storytelling.

Ngaroma's work creatively brings disparate ideas into dialogue in order to extrapolate new meanings, but at its core, it is an expression of sovereignty.

In his 1978 essay, "The Relevance of Māori Myth and Tradition,"the late Māori academic Ranginui Walker describes myths as "both a reflection of current social practice in dealing with a particular crisis and also a directive and an instruction on how to proceed."How do we proceed then when we see the merging of stories and the reconfiguring of pūrākau? How do Ngaroma's whao (chisel) and toki (adze) use the elasticity of storytelling to carve a new way of understanding our own time and the way these stories govern our lives? Ngaroma's work creatively brings disparate ideas into dialogue in order to extrapolate new meanings, but at its core, it is an expression of sovereignty. It is what artist, curator and visual historian Professor Jolene K. Rickard (citizen of the Tuscarora Nation, Turtle clan) describes in her 1995 essay Sovereignty: a line in the sand as an ongoing survival strategy for all Indigenous artists, that '..needs to be understood through the clarifying lens of sovereignty and self determination, not just in terms of assimilation, colonization and identity politics.'

Layering these two distinct pūrākau together places you in communion with Ngaroma's imagination and an inventive retelling of multiple stories through layers of repetitive incisive cuts into macrocarpa and Elm. The Elm wood came after a collaboration with Gunvor Guttorm, a Professor in Duodji (Sámi arts and crafts, traditional art, applied art), who visited Aotearoa for the touring show Architecture of Aroha, an exchange between Māori weavers and Sámi Duodji, curated by Zoe Black earlier this year. Gunvor and Ngaroma used half of the elm to construct a gietkka, a traditional (and portable) Sámi sleeping vessel for babies. These gietkka were shown alongside wahakura (Māori sleeping vessels for babies), made by Jasmine Te Hira and Tanya Reihana White. This collaboration was important to Ngaroma, not just to meet a Sámi knowledge holder who works with whakairo, but also the framing of the project centred around the significance of not just ensuring the safety and security of our babies, but the realisation that the bodies of Indigenous people who carry babies are the most significant architecture Indigenous people can create. The other half of the Elm tree, Ngaroma, used to carve her genderless baby in 'Tihei...mauri ora!'.

/

With a rhythmic, gentle tap, the wood's strata are peeled back. To sense the shape of the wood requires listening. Its parent rakau (tree) is an ancestor that continues to sing across time and generations. Each scratch at the wood's grain reveals its curves and turns.

/

Ngaroma's methodology for storytelling mimics the guiding principle for how we as Māori people understand our relation to one another and the natural world through whakapapa. A word which, at its core, means "to layer", but describes both an ethic and a genealogical ordering of the world and presents a possibility for the unlimited accumulation of knowledge.

/

Encoded within these Māori creation narratives and Frankenstein is a cautionary tale of limits, justice, accountability and imagination. The subtitle of Shelley's is The Modern Prometheus, which refers to the Greek myth around the Titan Prometheus, who defied the Olympian gods and stole their fire, gifting it to humanity in the form of knowledge and technology. Victor Frankenstein used science to create life. Tāne Mahuta wanted to extend his whakapapa. Prometheus stole from the gods. All three faced punishment. 'Tihei...mauri ora!' is opaque, and flirts with different forms of legibility, but also describes how we understand and shape many mythologies, stories and histories through a transmission based on cultural diffusion or what Professor Robert Jahnke has called trans-cultural.

In some ways, it could signify an exchange between two worlds, Te Ao Pākehā (the European world) and Te Ao Māori (the Māori world). For instance, when I think of Hinenuitepō living in the depths of the underworld, beneath her grandmother Papatūānuku, I am thinking also of Rūāumoko (son of Papatūānuku, the atua of earthquakes and volcanoes) down below with them. Hinenuitepō probably babysits Rūāumoko to stop him from crying and causing the earth to shake and a volcano to blow up from deep beneath the Earth's skin. But a volcanic eruption on Mount Tambora (an island on the Javanese archipelago now a part of Indonesia) in 1815 enabled the atmosphere in which Shelley first imagined the idea of Frankenstein. 1816 was the year known in Europe and North America as the year without summer and was a time of huge food shortages, famine and strange weather.

/

Ngāroma messages me to say she's been thinking about Taranga (the mother of the Demigod Māui), who thought her baby had died, so she wrapped her baby (Māui) in a tikitiki (topknot) cut from her hair and threw her baby into the sea. He was revived by his tūpuna Tangaroa, before being later found by and cared for by his grandfather, Tama-nui-ki-te-Rangi. When I think of our stories of Māui, the one I return to is that of his death and transformation to become in sync with the moon. Māui sought eternal life, so using his fishhook, he transformed into a worm and attempted to enter Hinenuitepō's vagina to obtain it. A bird called a Pīwakawaka giggled and woke Hinenuitepō, and she crushed Māui with the obsidian between her thighs. Instead of dying, Māui now exists as the blood that flows every month from the bodies of those who produce life in time with the moon - another source of life.

Ngaroma Riley's Tihei... mauri ora! was commissioned by Artspace Aotearoa for their 2025 Chartwell Trust New Commissions exhibition titled Echo. The exhibition also included new commissions by artists Erika Holm and Tarika Sabherwal. Read more about the exhibition here.

About Hana Pera Aoake

Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hinerangi, Waikato/Tainui) is an artist, writer and mum who lives and works in Aotearoa. Hana is currently working on their PhD, which investigates the intersection of labour, industrialisation, enclosure, poisons, waterways, Indigenous futurisms and how to be a haututū. They have published three books: Some helpful models of grief (Compound Press, 2025), blame it on the rain (no more poetry, 2025), and a bathful of kawakawa and hot water (Compound Press, 2020).

Aotearoa | G41 | Māori | Ngaroma Riley | revival | sculpture | wood

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Birth, death, transformation, imagination and ways of telling stories: On Ngaroma Riley | Garland Magazine

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Hana Pera Aoake explores the themes of birth, grief, and Indigenous sovereignty in a new work by Ngaroma Riley that fuses the Māori creation story of Hineahuone with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

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Gurukula Patasala, Andhra Pradesh, India

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A practice of place: Meeting Sandilya Theuerkauf 

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A practice of place: Meeting Sandilya Theuerkauf 

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A practice of place: Meeting Sandilya Theuerkauf | Garland Magazine

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Aditya Pandya profiles artist Sandilya Theuerkauf, whose sculptural-relief works are deeply rooted in South Indian landscapes, forming dense compositions of collected natural materials.

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A practice of place: Meeting Sandilya Theuerkauf 

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A practice of place: Meeting Sandilya Theuerkauf 

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https://garlandmag.com/article/sandilya-theuerkauf/

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A practice of place: Meeting Sandilya Theuerkauf | Garland Magazine

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Aditya Pandya profiles artist Sandilya Theuerkauf, whose sculptural-relief works are deeply rooted in South Indian landscapes, forming dense compositions of collected natural materials.

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Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation, Dick Ward Drive, Coconut Grove NT

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Jenna Lee explores the survival of First Nations language by repurposing colonial word lists into artworks that depict resprouting and cultural life.

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The Biyal project ✿ Salvaging culture through craft

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The Biyal project ✿ Salvaging culture through craft

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The Biyal project ✿ Salvaging culture through craft | Garland Magazine

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Pete McCurley honours the cyclical life of a sacred River Redgum tree in Guilford, whose salvaged timber now provides a powerful material for communal healing and remembrance.

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Bandung, Bandung City, West Java, Indonesia

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The cycle of creation: Spiritual motifs in Albert Yonathan Setyawan’s ceramics

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The cycle of creation: Spiritual motifs in Albert Yonathan Setyawan’s ceramics

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The cycle of creation: Spiritual motifs in Albert Yonathan Setyawan’s ceramics | Garland Magazine

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The Tree of Life: Ukraine is a country with many roots 

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The Tree of Life: Ukraine is a country with many roots 

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The Tree of Life: Ukraine is a country with many roots | Garland Magazine

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Reflections of Home: Diasporic journeys in four objects

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Reflections of Home: Diasporic journeys in four objects

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My Soil Farsh: Sites of connection, creation, and disruption 

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My Soil Farsh: Sites of connection, creation, and disruption 

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Prita Tina Yeganeh and Lamisse Hamouda

Prita Tina Yeganeh and Lamisse Hamouda explore the continuous unfolding of My Soil Farsh, examining the ephemeral, soil-based carpet as a site for cultural tools and community making

(A message to the reader.)

This is an experimental essay and conversation between friends, artist Prita Tina Yeganeh and writer Lamisse Hamouda. Prita Tina Yeganeh is a first-generation refugee-migrant-settler and interdisciplinary artist of Iranian ancestry based in Magan-djin (Brisbane). Lamisse Hamouda is a second-generation Egyptian-Australian migrant-settler, author, poet, and artist based in Magan-djin (Brisbane).

My Soil Farsh is an ongoing, durational project exploring community building, storytelling and ritual through a soil-based Farsh (Persian carpet) installation, and developed over two years (2024-2025) through two completed iterations, with a third underway. In this essay and conversation, Prita and Lamisse reflect on the work as a site for connection, creation and disruption. Together, they trace its evolution from a tool to an artwork and a vessel as the inquiries generated by the carpet threads themselves into broader conversations on the ways in which we move and orient ourselves in the world.

Lamisse: "What really engages me about this work is its responsiveness. It feels quite sensitive and attentive, a project that is open to - and stays open to - possibility and development. In order to enter into some of these flows and understand how each iteration has informed the other, I'm curious about some of the inquiries that led you into each iteration."

Prita: "So the first one was very much a private exploration, as in, the question was really about a personal inquiry, about wanting to resolve the experience of isolation and loneliness that unfolds through forced displacement... really the very visceral experience of that loneliness, not understanding why, and then not really having effective tools to be able to resolve it, no matter how much counselling... And while there are Western tools that are available to use, they [counselling] didn't actually resolve this experience for me. And so the inquiry became, okay, well, what other tools are there? And where do those tools come from? Because I have a lens that has Iranian sensibilities, I thought maybe I'm governed by cultural tools instead, and I just needed to find them. So the inquiry came as the result of wanting to find cultural tools in the diaspora and see if it could actually resolve isolation. Or is it that the tool I find only functions as a tool in the homeland? Could it be enacted here in the diaspora? And how does enactment unfold?"

There is an experience that Prita identifies in her body: one that is almost cellular - a heavy cloud that migrates into stomach pain and takes root as an ache in the heart. Like many people seeking resolution to the fractures of forced displacement, the initial inquiries emerge from the effort to resolve pain - the pain of loss and disorientation, and the isolation that results from them.

"Okay, well, what other tools are there? And where do those tools come from?"
Lamisse: "And what tool did you come to find?"
Prita: "I found the Farsh, because the Farsh connected me to the earliest memories I had of feeling a strong sense of belonging. And that became Iteration 1 - I found a tool, the Farsh, and I experimented with that tool through the reactivation of my own carpet at home. It had been dormant, ornamental, and was basically being used as a piece of furniture. But it had a lot of nostalgia and sentiment. So, I looked to activate it as a containment for the ritual of gathering - and 'the ritual-of-gathering' became the name of the first iteration. So, it was a physical tool that was then used to bring people into the act of gathering: the Farsh enables togetherness, it enables intimacy, because the physicality of the carpet also creates the containment of bodies in proximity. And these realisations unfolded in the experiment of physically gathering over an extended period of time."

ITERATION 1: The Ritual of Gathering

Noticing how the Persian Farsh had often been reduced to furniture or ornamentation, Prita aimed to reinstate its social and cultural function by inviting community members to gather on her own Farsh-re-enacting the communal rituals of her childhood-across a nine-month period. "Iteration 1 (The Ritual of Gathering)" translated the intimacies of community building that unfolded through this experiment. Seeking to root conversations in relationships with memory, land and place, Prita turned to soil, an ephemeral substance that could be gathered, shaped, and eventually returned. The red, loamy clay-sourced from a backyard on Quandamooka Country in West Manly-mirrors the soil profiles found in both South East Queensland, where Prita lives, and her Iranian homeland, thus serving as a vessel for memory, land, and place. Iteration 1 involved Prita hand-grinding and sieving 45 kilograms of soil into fine powder over three months, then assembling the soil Farsh herself over 17 hours-a process through which the labour raised questions about shared work. Both matriarchal and collective, carpet-weaving in Iran traditionally functioned as a process for the intergenerational transfer of women's knowledge and the building of communal bonds through various forms of shared labour. These inquiries around community-building, collective labour, and connection evolved into "Iteration 2 (The Sacred Shared Labour)".

ITERATION 2: The Shared Sacred Labour

The disassociation between labour and commodity had come to undermine the role shared labour has historically played in building and strengthening communal bonds, as well as the knowledge created and conveyed through shared labour. In response, for Iteration 2, Prita extended an open invitation for participation and collaboration in the making of the Farsh material. Over the course of one month, 17 women gathered to collectively hand-grind 45 kilograms of soil, transforming the labour of material production into an act of connection.
Lamisse: "What were some of the questions that came up from the first iteration? Questions that then led you into wanting to do iteration two?"
Prita: "So now I asked, how can shared labour activate community and bind us to each other? How would people who don't know each other well build relationships through physical labour?.. I had just intended to have a few protocols about silence, not for the whole part, but a certain part of it, because I was also exploring ideas to encourage intimacy, and I had considered that the space held for silence between strangers was really very intimate. What I couldn't have predicted was how many women would come at any one time and the rhythmic, ritualistic grinding that then unfolded in the silence... And that sometimes the only way we can resolve the discomfort [of silence] is through physical movements... and with the containment of that grinding, it became comfortable to be around people you don't know... The feedback from most of the women afterwards was that they yearned for the grinding."

New Iterations

Now in its next stage, Prita shifts the project from restoring human connections with one another to addressing human relationships with the earth. She explores possibilities of ecological restoration, use of technology, and extends new invitations for community to participate in the co-creation of the Farsh stories.

Prita: "I see the Farsh as a written page now. All the iterations have really helped me learn about Farsh story-weaving, and the lexicon of ancient motifs that create the language for storytelling in carpets. So in each iteration, I mapped and imprinted a visual story that echoed the way a traditional Persian Farsh story is created...and I did this through 3D-printing the motif designs as stamps and hand-imprinting them into the soil."

Interactions With the Farsh

"When you hold a cultural object-knowing it does not originate from your own lens or environment-consider what other functions it may have held before it reached you, and how you might choose to value or honour it."

Prita considers how the Farsh has been experienced and interacted with in public spaces like a gallery. Across the five carpets that have been laid to date, she has observed and documented a series of unexpected disruptions-footprints and handprints that have, at times, significantly altered the intended stories and intricate patternations on the red soil. Upon first witnessing these interventions, Prita made a deliberate decision not to repair or reprint the surface. Instead, she chose to allow these traces of disruption to remain, positioning the work as an evolving and living print-one that continues to achieve public interactions.

Prita: "It's really interesting to me. There's a mix of curiosity and innocence-because there are children in the space-and then there are people who don't realise it's an artwork and walk through it. I've also heard of instances where adults feel entitled to engage with the work as they choose, disrupting the artwork by intentionally ignoring gallery directions."

Lamisse: "Oh, let's walk through that, because there are layers there that are very interesting. There's innocent disruption, curiosity, kids in the space; there's this not knowing and then there's deliberation disruption. Can you walk me through how you know, as in, how you learnt to see these layers and how they show up in the way the carpet is disrupted?"

Prita:"Yeah, the innocence really comes from children, who want to touch as a sensory tool for understanding. I would say adults also do that, and have done that, in all the iterations, but they also understand the context that it is an artwork, it's in a gallery... so they're actively deciding to disrupt it. I'm not saying this is wrong or right, it's just an interesting observation. They do it by putting their hands through it - into the soil - because they either know it's soil and want to feel the texture - or don't know and are just curious. So, it's mostly hands. But with children, it's hands, feet, faces and everything. ...And then there are the people who don't know it's an artwork. And the feedback I received is that they considered it to be an actual carpet... so they're walking through it thinking it's actually a piece of furniture, and one that they can walk on."
Lamisse: "Even if the Farsh looks real, you wouldn't walk on it... because it's in a gallery space and art is everywhere? You would check, wouldn't you?"
Prita: "Well, they just think it's a carpet in a room. For example, a courier once did that-he walked straight through the artwork and completely disrupted the print in moving through the gallery. But most often, and I think ironically, it's adults during exhibition openings who walk on the Farsh because they aren't conscious of where their feet are or how their movement intersects with the work. Of course, this isn't malicious, but I find it really curious because it happens so often, despite signs and gallery protocols. Now, I speak about these disruptions with people-about what it means, what it communicates, and what the next viewer might see because of those footprints."
Lamisse: "And what about these disruptions took you aback? What is it that caused such a moment of pause and reflection for you?"
Prita: "Well.. for me, and many in our West-Asian communities, you simply don't walk on a carpet with shoes.. You take your shoes off before entering. It's a social protocol, almost 'lore' ...and I think it's rooted in deep respect for labour and cultural knowledge. And it's not just about dirt on shoes..yes, shoes damage the natural fibers..but there's an immense respect, pride, and care. I think that's underlying that protocol in our society..and thats because of what a Farsh actually represents.. ancient stories, centuries of hand-making knowledge and skill..these are all bound with our landscapes, and identity and heritage. I think perhaps those of us in the diasporic second and third generations don't fully register all the reasons why, even if we learn and mimic these protocols from childhood, but I think our parents-and perhaps it's first and older generations- I think they hold more understanding through their stronger relationships with Iran."
Lamisse: "Is there something these disruptions revealed to you about how people interact with art and culture?"
Prita: "Ok, so when people walk on the artwork-The Soil Farsh-perceiving it as a piece of furniture and physically disrupting it...they're actually exposing a tension that exists between the East and the West...an ongoing tension between different cultural ways of knowing and being, and the processes of cultural erasure that happen through the way Western societies actually engage with cultural objects. The Persian Farsh, itself is a good example of this. It's experiencing this kind of erasure through its popularity and exoticisation in Western furniture markets. The Farsh being industrialised strips it of its use, knowledge, and ritual. Things that once underpinned its cultural significance..."

"Well.. for me, and many in our West-Asian communities, you simply don't walk on a carpet with shoes"

Prita: "This project has really deepened my understanding of this, and the gravity of protecting cultural objects. It's not just about preserving cultural aesthetics-I mean, yeah, that has its place-but it's more about keeping alive the intangible cultural heritage that's embedded within these objects. So for example.. the knowledge, tools, and spiritual practices that would be otherwise lost. I've started to register that when we lose the intangible, we lose the tools-those ways of making...and relating...and healing that have actually sustained our communities for generations. I think these tools actually hold knowledge about balance, and reciprocity, and care-and I think they are vital not only for our own cultural survival but for the well-being of general society."

For those who seem to actively disrupt the carpet, Prita reflects - and speculates - on moments witnessed and conversations had; she thinks through the inherent requests of the work, and of the protocols around the Farsh being displayed in a gallery setting. As she considers if there is a need to provide clearer guidelines about the work, or offering more cultural information, Prita also pushes back on this, indicating that there are inherent requests in the work, and she questions the reflex of placing the responsibility upon her - the artist - to do this labour.

Prita: "I honestly don't think cultural guidelines or protocols or even explicit invitations are going to change the disruptions. I think there are already clear instructions in place-both within the gallery space and around the artwork itself. You know..dont touch, stay behind the line etc...Instead, I think the work, in its very nature, actually offers an invitation - I understand it's a quiet one-but it's to be still, to be conscious of your body, to accept that there are unknowns and concealments, and mysteries that are inherent... not just to this artwork but actually most if not all cultural work."

"I don't blame anyone; it's just an interesting observation and reflection on society."

Just as hand-weaving carpets is a slow and labour-intensive process, so are the months of grinding, 17 plus hours of laying and printing each iteration of the ephemeral My Soil Farsh, which, in seconds, is often disrupted or destroyed. In a way, what happens to My Soil Farsh in the gallery space reflects what has been happening to the Farsh, and to cultures, and to communities-a forgetting, a treading on, a disrupting and a destroying of the tools that have long been so crucial to the ways in which we've built connections and communities. In the reactivation of the Farsh, Prita is reaching toward the carpet's function: a containment for community and a container for the inheritance of knowledge and story. By leaving the footprints and handprints, Prita leaves the work to be witness to its disintegration and invites conversation and reflection - and another chance through another iteration.

About Lamisse Hamouda

Through writing, performing and teaching, Lamisse Hamouda weaves together an multi-disciplinary practice that integrates artistic and therapeutic practices. A 2025 Keesing Studio Writer-in-Residence at Cité Internationales des Artes in Paris, her writing and poetry have been published by Red Room Poetry, Runway Journal, Arts of the Working Class, Sweatshop - Western Sydney Literacy Movement, Garland Mag and more. Her debut novel, 'The Shape of Dust' won the 2024 National Biography of the Year award.

About Prita Tina Yeganeh

Prita Tina Yeganeh is a multidisciplinary visual artist of Iranian ancestry. Her practice is shaped by her lived experiences, her education in environmental engineering, and experimental research into Iranian heritage crafts. She works across installation, printmaking, textile, moving image, and participatory practice. Through slow, durational processes, Yeganeh draws on Iranian sensibilities and knowledge systems to explore the emotional and physical geographies of migration, identity, and place-examining how reconnection, care, and healing can be enacted in personal, familial, and community life. Her practice reclaims cultural knowledge from afar, reframing heritage crafts not as static artefacts but as living, evolving epistemologies.

Australia | exhibition | G41 | Iran | ritual

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My Soil Farsh: Sites of connection, creation, and disruption | Garland Magazine

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Prita Tina Yeganeh and Lamisse Hamouda explore the continuous unfolding of My Soil Farsh, examining the ephemeral, soil-based carpet as a site for cultural tools and community making

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The garden of stones: How a dream transformed the practice of glazing

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The garden of stones: How a dream transformed the practice of glazing

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The garden of stones: How a dream transformed the practice of glazing | Garland Magazine

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Anne-Marie Dehon shares a dreamlike experience of the ceramic glaze as a vibrant, living material, prompting her to consider her glazing practice as a form of “gardening” built on careful observation and collaboration with the transformative nature of minerals.

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Shirobey Kobayashi: A potter of all trades

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Shirobey Kobayashi: A potter of all trades

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Liliana Morais

Liliana Morais profiles master wood-firer Shirobey Kobayashi, who embraces risk and unpredictability in his ceramics as a path to a self-sufficient and creative life.

Shirobey Kobayashi - or simply Shirobey , as he prefers to be called - is a tanned Japanese man with dreadlocked hair now turning gray and a contagious smile. He is a world-renowned potter and wood-firer, but also a farmer, carpenter, and cook - all trades he taught himself while carving out a slower, more self-reliant life, far from Japan's corporate dream at the height of its economic boom.

Growing up in Yuki, Ibaraki Prefecture, near the famous pottery town of Mashiko - one of the centers of Japan's Folk Crafts ( Mingei ) Movement - Shirobey's call to ceramics was less an inheritance of tradition than a conscious rejection of the salaryman rat race. "I chose to become a potter because in pottery there are no rules," he says. "With pottery, I can relax through work." And he hopes others can do the same: "I want people to find themselves - to relax and do what they want."

That pursuit of freedom led him to leave Japan in the early 1980s and travel the world. He spent seven years backpacking through Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia while doing odd jobs, in search of himself. Along the way, he met his future wife, Austrian restorer and organic farmer Pia Dellafior. The couple first settled near Mashiko, where Shirobey began teaching himself pottery while working part-time at a cooperative pottery shop and studio. There, he was given access to a large gas kiln and the freedom to experiment. After ten months, confident he had learned enough to strike out on his own, he began building his own studio and wood-fired kiln.

For Shirobey, the allure of wood-firing - especially in the Unlike gas or kerosene-fueled kilns, where glazes must be applied meticulously to produce colour and pattern, in the anagama , a primitive Japanese kiln dating back to the 5th century, which witnessed a revival with the 1970s back-to-the-land movement - is the thrill of the unknown. The excitement of opening the kiln comes from its uncontrollable nature, which allows for unexpected results ( igai na mono dekiru ). yakishime , fuses clay, flame, and chance. "Wood-firing is like a gamble," he says. "You can get amazing results or uninteresting ones - but pottery has to have an impact." anagama, it is the fire and ash themselves that do the work. The results, he says, have "the power of nature," as the potter surrenders control to the elements. This process, known as

Yet it's not all luck and nature's grace. Mastery lies in reading the fire - understanding the kiln's atmosphere, its quirks, its moods. Through experience, a potter learns to predict how each section of the kiln will behave and loads the pieces accordingly. During his early experiments with anagama firing, only two or three pots out of hundreds met his approval after an intense seven-day process of bringing the kiln up to 1,250°C and feeding it around the clock. "The more you suffer, the more interesting the results" - he laughs. For him, firing a kiln is like life itself: "If there are ups and downs, it's more fun."

Still, firing is only part of the story. While the process of forming the body at the wheel is crucial to achieving a nice shape, the most important factor in making a beautiful pot is the clay itself. "The materials are very important, so if something turns out bad, it's my own fault" - he says with a grin. Although based near Mashiko, known for its iron-rich clays, he prefers clay from Shigaraki, prized for its coarse texture and natural inclusions that react beautifully with ash and flame.

Good wood, too, is essential. Shirobey fires primarily with red pine ( akamatsu ), long favored in pottery regions such as Bizen for its oil-rich body and long, steady burn. Its high iron content produces vivid green, yellow, and sometimes blue ash deposits on the surface of pots, depending on whether the kiln atmosphere is oxidizing or reducing. He also employs a technique of alternating high and low temperatures during firing to build up thick layers of ash - and when the results still don't satisfy him, he will re-fire the same work a second, third or even fourth time. This shows the amount of time, labor, and dedication that goes into every single piece he brings into the world.

Despite all this effort, Shirobey still describes pottery as "a kind of hobby," though he admits how lucky he feels to be able to make a living from clay - tsuchi de seikatsu dekiru wa ii . When not at the wheel or kiln, he helps Pia on the farm, where they grow more than fifty varieties of vegetables and grains such as wheat, and raise chickens for eggs - making them almost entirely self-sufficient food-wise. He also devotes himself to carpentry, a lifelong passion. "I did badly at school, but I could build a house," he recalls. "Building is completely different from pottery because you have to be very precise with the numbers and the math." He built his own home using beams from a 300-year-old Japanese house that was being demolished, as well as several wood-fueled kilns (three of which were destroyed in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake) and even two of his children's homes.

For Shirobey, the key to a good life is simple: health. That means safe, delicious food, and - one might add - a self-determined life, sustained by one's craft, family, and the quiet beauty of everyday things.

ceramics | G41 | Japan | Liliana Morais

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Shirobey Kobayashi: A potter of all trades | Garland Magazine

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Liliana Morais profiles master wood-firer Shirobey Kobayashi, who embraces risk and unpredictability in his ceramics as a path to a self-sufficient and creative life.

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The Ripple Effect: A clay response to Żelazny Most

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The Ripple Effect: A clay response to Żelazny Most

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The Ripple Effect: A clay response to Żelazny Most | Garland Magazine

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Alicja Patanowska creates an arresting art installation in the V&A Museum’s garden by transforming 2,000 unique ceramic pieces made from the waste of Europe’s largest copper mine into a profound reflection on environmental damage and material care.

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Conversations across time: Pim Sudhikam’s clay dialogue with the Baan Kao people 

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Conversations across time: Pim Sudhikam’s clay dialogue with the Baan Kao people 

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Conversations across time: Pim Sudhikam’s clay dialogue with the Baan Kao people | Garland Magazine

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Pim Sudhikam explores the bond between maker and place by remaking ancient Thai vessels from contemporary excavation clay, realigning history with the modern urban setting.

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Can we be reborn without dying? | Garland Magazine

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Maria Fernanda Paes de Barros recounts how visiting the Pataxó territory fostered her transformation by offering her an Indigenous perspective on Brazil’s colonial history.

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Vivian Qiu shares the story of her ongoing Life Line Braid, a growing piece of wearable textile art that serves as a tactile journal documenting her personal journey, emotions, and life philosophy.

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Kindred spirits: Reconfiguring free-time hand-weaving | Garland Magazine

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Rosa Tolnov Clausen details the rediscovery of Meta Rosenberg’s portable Tønder Loom Frame, an enduring tool that keeps the ancient art of hand-weaving perpetually relevant and accessible for modern life.

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Chasing the loom: The quiet revolution of the TC2

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Chasing the loom: The quiet revolution of the TC2

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Jane Burns

Jane Burns charts her global pursuit of the TC2 Jacquard loom, a technology that transforms the tradition of handwoven tapestry through digital image integration.

My art practice has ranged across sculpture, photography and printmaking, but in recent years has focused on weaving and creating handwoven works on the TC2 Jacquard loom-a computer-controlled, manually operated handloom. This practice integrates the disciplines of hand weaving and digital weaving, and utilises an innovative technology that only a few artists in Australia currently use.

My journey into weaving began when I developed designs for large-scale tapestries and researched manufacturers producing these on Industrial Jacquard looms. The highly detailed, large-scale tapestries being made in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada were impressive, but the more I looked into having the work made on an industrial loom, the more compelled I was to weave the work myself. Then I came across the TC2 Jacquard loom and was interested in how this technology allowed for the traditions of hand-woven tapestry with the flexibility to use digital imagery. I could see a way to bring hand weaving into my practice and produce objects that sit between the pictorialism of painting and photography, and the materiality of weaving.

I could see a way to bring hand weaving into my practice and produce objects that sit between the pictorialism of painting and photography, and the materiality of weaving.

I had decided that the TC2 was my "tool" and once the barrier of Australia's lockdown was removed, I would be able to work with this technology. But I had to travel overseas as this groundbreaking tool was inaccessible to use in Australia. This is still the case as there are just two TC2 in private hands and one at a University, and none are available for hire. So began my journey of chasing the loom!

Weaving has always relied on specialised equipment and processes. As an artist seeking to work in digital handweaving, I faced challenges in accessing the tools to develop a practice in this field. I wasn't deterred, and between 2022 and 2025, I studied with master weavers in New Zealand and Finland, undertook a residency at UNSW Art & Design School, and participated in a workshop in France.

In 2024, I spent 5 weeks at Studio Huhmarkangas in Finland to produce 10 large hand-woven works for the series, Movement (Arrest). The work examines the clash between urgent social movements and political resistance, and the title refers both to the act of arrest and to broader efforts to suppress growing citizen movements. This series was recently exhibited at The Lennox, Richmond.

In 2025, I travelled to the historical centre of European tapestry in Aubusson, France, to work at Lainamac, a centre for wool excellence with a TC2 studio. Weaving with wool was new for me, and a fine woollen warp resulted in a lot of breaks in the yarn as well as a different surface texture. Perseverance is necessary in weaving, and each day I repaired breaks and continued to weave the series, Stubborn Tangles. The work shows the body in protest in the act of locking on, to explore collective action, resistance, and our entangled interdependence as a species. A work from the series titled "Stubborn Tangles (Lock On)", 2025, was recently shown in "Naarm Textile Biennale - Social Fabric", an exhibition of textile artists from Victoria working across tapestry, embroidery, and stitching.

While I was in Europe, I travelled to Norway to attend the Digital Weaving Innovation through Pixels Conference 2025, the first global gathering and showcase of the TC2 loom since it was released 30 years ago. The loom was initially developed for textile sampling and is now used in art, design, smart textiles, wearable technology, fashion, cultural heritage and preservation, animation, sound, and the evolving intersection of craft and computation. Thus, the conference brought together educational institutions, textile companies, maker spaces, artists, and designers, and included a diverse exhibition of works made on the TC2 loom. There were over 50 works, including those by Lia Cook, Grethe Sorensen, Kristina Austi, Mariane Fairbanks, Lisa Frolund, Christy Matson, and Kristine Five Melvaer.

The conference was held by Digital Weaving Norway, who make the TC2 (Thread Controller 2). They said of the conference, "The Digital Weaving: Innovation Through Pixels Conference was more than an anniversary; it was a living testament to the past, present, and future of digital weaving. From honouring three decades of TC looms to sparking new collaborations across art, design, and technology, the event reaffirmed the loom's transformative role in shaping textile creation worldwide!"

The quiet revolution of the TC2

The Industrial Revolution included the introduction of the Jacquard loom, but with this technological development, many skilled hand weavers lost their employment. Thirty years ago, the TC2 loom sparked a new revolution-this time in handweaving with a computer-controlled, manually-operated loom that is designed to be operated by the weaver / artist/ designer. Like Industrial Jacquard looms, each yarn is on its own shaft, and each thread is controlled independently to give the utmost flexibility in weaving. The TC2 brings this technology to the hand weaver, allowing for manual operation of the weft threads, and a simpler interface enabling artists and designers to take a digital file to woven cloth.

In the decade before the first TC1 was sold in 1995, the original vision and development of the loom came from artist-weaver Vibeke Vestby, who was driven to speed up the process from idea to woven fabric and had done extensive research on computer applications in handweaving. In 1984, Vibeke learnt computer programming to explore how the computer could be used to plan weave structures, then set her sights on computer-controlled processes. In 1990, she gave a lecture on digital weaving in California, and in the same year received a grant from the Norwegian Ministry of Education, which prioritised projects involving women and traditional crafts. With this support, the first Thread Controller was presented at the German "Talentenbörse" in Spring 1991, and the TC-1 was prototyped in collaboration with Tronrud Engineering, the Norwegian company that developed the Digital Weaving Norway (DWN) brand. In 2012, the TC2 launched, and fast forward to 2025, Digital Weaving Norway has sold over 300 TC2 looms worldwide, and Vibeke is the Manager of TC Looms at the company.

My journey continues

Looking ahead, I am striving to bring a TC2 into Australia to continue to develop and sustain my arts practice in the field of digital weaving. My plan is to open up access to other artists and, once established, to offer training and workshops to the public and seek opportunities to collaborate with artists, interior designers, and architects. As interesting as it has been chasing the loom around the world, it is time to bring my "tool" home. To follow the journey, sign up to the Loom Loop.

About Jane Burns

Jane Burns is an Australian artist and weaver, based in Naarm/Melbourne on the unceded Country of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree - Sculpture (1992) and a Graduate Certificate - Visual Art (2018) from the Victorian College of the Arts, and a Diploma of Education - Art (2005) from Monash University. Visit www.janeburns.com.au and follow @jane_burns_artist/

digital | G41 | Jane Burns | Melbourne | weaving

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Chasing the loom: The quiet revolution of the TC2 | Garland Magazine

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Jane Burns charts her global pursuit of the TC2 Jacquard loom, a technology that refreshes the tradition of handwoven tapestry through digital image integration.

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If Only We Could Bury Our City | Garland Magazine

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Lara Salous honours the sustained creation of Majdalawi fabric by weaver Hussam Zaqout, who rebuilds the tradition after repeated forced displacement and erasure.

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Batik Revival Project: Cocos Islanders share their far-flung world in wax 

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Batik Revival Project: Cocos Islanders share their far-flung world in wax 

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Batik Revival Project: Cocos Islanders share their far-flung world in wax | Garland Magazine

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Niamh Swingler recounts the successful Batik Revival Project that reconnected the remote Cocos Keeling Islands community with their cultural past by reintroducing textile art skills through silk painting and hot wax batik workshops.

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https://garlandmag.com/article/indigo-oaxaca/

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A festival of indigo in Oaxaca | Garland Magazine

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Anna Bruce traces the history and spiritual significance of indigo in Oaxaca, Mexico, detailing the traditional production process in Santiago de Niltepec and the contemporary artistic practice of artist Natalia Munro.

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Azad Maidan, Mahatma Gandhi Road, near Head Quarters, Opposite Azad Maidan, Ozari, Panaji, Goa, India

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The craft of descent: Anjana Somany’s experiential stepwell exhibition 

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The craft of descent: Anjana Somany’s experiential stepwell exhibition 

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The craft of descent: Anjana Somany’s experiential stepwell exhibition | Garland Magazine

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Anjana Somany discusses shaping her Serendipity Arts Festival installation by using craft to embody the enduring architecture of stepwells.

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Mount Fuji, Kitayama, Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, Japan

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Mount Fuji, Kitayama, Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, Japan

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Mount Fuji, Kitayama, Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, Japan

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Re-animating Daidarabotchi | Garland Magazine

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Kyoko Imazu explored her lifelong fascination with Yōkai by shaping a new shadow puppet performance titled “Wonder,” inspired by a gentle poem that magnifies the natural world.

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Pangu and Tai Sui in Chinese cosmology | Garland Magazine

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Angela Sim explores the foundational Chinese cosmological figures of Pangu (the primordial creator) and Tai Sui (the cyclical time-keeper), contrasting their roles as architect and governor of the universe, as celebrated in Zhuxian Zhen woodblock printing.

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On my journey translating the Ayvu Rapyta, mystery, and hummingbirds 

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On my journey translating the Ayvu Rapyta, mystery, and hummingbirds | Garland Magazine

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Andrea Ferrari recounts the profound doubts she faced while spending seven years attempting to translate the sacred Mbya Guaraní creation text, Ayvu Rapyta, as she grappled with the conflict between revealing its spiritual mystery and respecting the culture’s strategy of evasion.

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https://garlandmag.com/article/ngalak-wonga/

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Jennifer Moyle Ogbeide-Ihama and Gregory Pryor

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Ngalak Wonga: Co-creation encounters | Garland Magazine

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Jennifer Moyle Ogbeide-Ihama and Gregory Pryor explore trauma and renewal by rendering their simultaneous spiritual encounters with the Marri tree on Noongar Country.

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Matilda Davis: The beginning of the Universe Is Love 

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Matilda Davis: The beginning of the Universe Is Love | Garland Magazine

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Lenke Barabasi interviews Matilda Davis about her works in paint and clay that re-imagine how things began.

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Goa International Airport (GOI), Airport Road, Dabolim, Goa, India

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Goa International Airport (GOI), Airport Road, Dabolim, Goa, India

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Goa International Airport (GOI), Airport Road, Dabolim, Goa, India

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Diptej Vernekar ✿ Playing with Demons | Garland Magazine

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Kaamya Sharma talks with Diptej Vernekar about the effigy of Narakasura in Goa, a form that is continuously reborn.

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Circe: Witch, woman, goddess | Garland Magazine

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Shana James collaborates with Ebony Russell, celebrating female creation through porcelain and printmaking inspired by the myth of Circe.

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The ABU Cultural Carnival: where Nigeria’s unity is woven in rhythm and colour

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The ABU Cultural Carnival: where Nigeria’s unity is woven in rhythm and colour

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The ABU Cultural Carnival: where Nigeria’s unity is woven in rhythm and colour | Garland Magazine

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Emmanuel Solate guides us to the three-day festival in Kaduna, Nigeria, that embodies a youthful regeneration of cultural pride.

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Sharon Peoples set out to embroider the sky, which she ended up stitching into hand-bound books.

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Bánh Xèo Bà Dưỡng, Hoàng Diệu, Phước Ninh, Hải Châu District, Da Nang, Vietnam

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Le Ba Ngoc

Le Ba Ngoc shares his knowledge of a Vietnamese village famous for its kites that keep alive an ancient legend.

Ba Duong Noi village is a small village nestled along the Red River. According to the genealogy of the families in the village, the craft of making kites and the hobby of flying kites have existed for more than a thousand years. To have the best kite to compete in the annual kite festival in March, the villagers have started preparing their kites from August of the previous year, aiming for the best possible outcome. To make a kite, one must go through many stages. First, the kite frame or "bone" is chosen. The kite "bone" is mainly made of bamboo, but not all types of bamboo can be used, so it is necessary to choose old, thorny bamboo growing in the plains. The time to cut the bamboo is also critical; the bamboo must be cut in winter, dried, then split and shaped into the kite frame. The reason for the meticulous selection of bamboo is that this small and dense bamboo gives the kite a hard, flexible, durable and light frame.

Kites are usually made from Do paper (a kind of mulberry tree/Rhamnus balansae). The adhesive is the resin of the fruit of the civet tree. The fruit is crushed and mixed with water. The residue is then removed, and the resulting liquid, as thick as rice water, is spread on the paper. When dry, the paper turns brown, hard and waterproof.

Kite strings were initially made from bamboo. Every year, around the third lunar month, people in Ba Duong Noi village look for young bamboo trees with white powder on their stems. They cut the bamboo into thin strips and boil them with a mixture of salt and castor oil seeds. They boil them for about six to eight hours, then take them out and tie them together. This type of kite string is flexible and tough. When exposed to wind, the strings are taut and light.

The deep affection between the immortal world and the mortal world is not easy to forget.

Why the kite was invented, and who invented the flute with that deep, mournful sound, is not an easy question to answer. Looking back at the folk tales that the village elders still tell their children and grandchildren, it was a long time ago, when heaven and earth were in harmony. Every time the earth held a festival, the fairies from heaven still came down to celebrate with the mortals. Then one day, a storm arose, and when the storm ended, the sky was high above them. Since then, due to the distance, the fairies from heaven had no way to come down to celebrate on earth. The deep affection between the immortal world and the mortal world is not easy to forget. So people created the kite and the flute as an invitation to remember.

That is the legend, but the truth is, in the world, the Vietnamese flute type is ranked as special; no other country has it. The Vietnamese kite flute team participated in the kite festivals of China in 2011 and France in 2013. When the Vietnamese kite soared high in foreign skies, and the flute's sound resonated with each wind, it captivated international friends with surprise and admiration. Because, there is nowhere in the world to find such a strange, melodious, deep and flexible flute sound.

To make a standard kite is difficult, but to make a standard flute is a hundred, a thousand times more difficult. Kite players have long had a saying: "A kite player will never have a good flute in his life" for that reason. The first step to make a flute is to consider the materials. It must be old bamboo; the dead bamboo is even better. Only old bamboo is strong, durable and produces good sound. The two sides of the flute are usually covered with Mit (jackfruit) wood so that the flute can produce a high sound.

Even the famous artisans of the Kite Village do not have many who can make flutes with good melodies. The flute maker, in addition to the crafting techniques, also depends on musical appreciation. Therefore, those who are knowledgeable about the craft can recognise the hand of the flute maker every time the kite is flown.

In Ba Duong Noi, people do not compare kites to the image of the moon but often compare them to leaves. For example, the Muom Wing Kites (muom leaves), the Lemon Wing Kites (lemon leaves) and the Moc Wing Kites (wooden leaves).
Ba Duong Noi Kite Festival is recognised as part of Vietnam's Intangible Cultural Heritage. The festival is held on the 15th day of the third Lunar month, around mid-April.
About Le Ba Ngoc

Le Ba Ngoc is the Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietcraft Association (Vietnam Handicraft Export Association). In this role, he works with the artisan sector to support its development and facilitate its connection to international markets. His activities focus on the sustainable growth of craft communities in Vietnam.

G40 | kite | Vietnam

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Ba Duong Noi: A village in the sky | Garland Magazine

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Le Ba Ngoc shares his knowledge of a Vietnamese village famous for its kites that keep alive an ancient legend.

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A Chinese dragon flies to Paris | Garland Magazine

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Meikei Huang writes about master kite-maker Wang Yongxun, whose creatures of the sky connect peoples across the world.

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Of storms and stillness: Embroidery with passion

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Hansika Sharma travels to Kutch to find the indigo that will connect her to the skies above.

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Sky Series: Painting the heavens with glass 

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Sky Series: Painting the heavens with glass 

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Sky Series: Painting the heavens with glass | Garland Magazine

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Nganin nganitj cry to protect the night sky 

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Nganin nganitj cry to protect the night sky 

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Nganin nganitj cry to protect the night sky | Garland Magazine

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Ying Ying Karang: Song of the wattle | Garland Magazine

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Being curlew across Yorkshire | Garland Magazine

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Matt Lewis talks with Matt Trevelyan, the man who walked 53 miles dressed as a curlew.

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As the sun set on the fall equinox: Hospitality for winged visitors |

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As the sun set on the fall equinox: Hospitality for winged visitors |

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As the sun set on the fall equinox: Hospitality for winged visitors | Garland Magazine

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Birdland: Works from a Naracoorte Artist Residency 

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Birdland: Works from a Naracoorte Artist Residency 

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Birdland: Works from a Naracoorte Artist Residency | Garland Magazine

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Jacky Cheng

Jacky Cheng talks about the epic evolution of her Paifang gate, from dyeing workshops in Laos to a mother-daughter collaboration in Broome.

In 2024, Jacky Cheng was invited to participate in an exhibition, The Neighbour at the Gate, curated by Clothilde Bullen, Michael Do, and Zali Morgan. The exhibition aimed to "centre the connection between First Nations and Asian Australian cultural groups and also raise the level of awareness of those connections" that exist outside mainstream culture.

Three key provocations framed the project:

How immigrants to Australia are both beneficiaries of and impacted by colonialism, and how to understand this.

How Asian diaspora communities make meaning in a new land under colonialism, especially when new to understanding Australian First Nations peoples and their history and their entanglement with identity, nationalism, and post-colonial structures.

The convergence of friendship, migration, and custodianship, and how stories of mobility, cultural interaction, and resistance intersect.

Jacky Cheng chose to respond literally to the idea of "the gate", drawing inspiration from Salman Rushdie's book, The Imaginary Homelands. She talks about the concept and realisation of her work.

✿

The Neighbour at the Gate leans into those feelings of being on the outside looking in. There's this push and pull between longing for a place, feeling part of it, and also feeling slightly removed. I'm constantly circling it, remembering it, but never fully in it within my own community. I think that's something many people experience, especially those who have been displaced or grown up between cultures.

This year is my twenty-fourth year in Australia, and I left Malaysia when I was twenty-four. I am at the equal time of as much time I've spent in Malaysia as I've spent in Australia. I am neither strong in either one, but I am trying to hold on to something. The word "the gate" really draws back to identity, belonging, and how memory can both comfort and complicate.

Paifang

One of the biggest references to Chinese gates is the paifang archways. They are simply beautiful and symbolic structures, and also act as a marker or a threshold between what's known and what's unknown. For someone like me from a migrant background, that idea of being in between worlds really resonates. The work was very much about welcoming people through these invisible borders, because we go through so many invisible borders or invisible gates everywhere we go.

The wording on the Chinese paifang would usually be about something that relates to prosperity. And then there will be lots of different symbols associated with that. You typically see a bat or two lions, though for my work, it's not about the lions; it's essentially experiential when moving through a physical archway.

The height of a gate must be grandiose...

The height of a gate must be grandiose, which I tried to encapsulate. It's not a small gallery, but by the time the gate goes up, it has given the space a presence, and you have no choice but to be drawn to go through. It's the difference between profane and sacred, moving into some different, more sacred space.

How the work was made

Earlier this year, I went to Laos, and I did a workshop with Samorn Sanixay on natural dyeing. I've heard great reviews about what Samorn has done within the community. I also read about weaving in Laos, which was very much about the relationship between mothers and daughters: little young girls would learn weaving from their mum at a very young age.

When I finished that amazing workshop, I wanted to use these silk threads and bring that narrative into the gate through little tassels. At the same time, I had invited my mum to visit me, and I related to her the stories I had learnt about the Laotian mothers and daughters working together. There isn't friction in the relationship with my mother, but there has been tension since I was a child.

Anyway, I invited her to come, and she was restless, so I introduced her to these silks, and she loved the idea of doing something with her hands. I taught her how to make these natural dyed silk tassels. We made them together. It felt like I'd crossed another border, another gate, of getting to know my mother in a different, more personal aspect. It was initially meant to keep her occupied, but then I thought, "This is so beautiful". I decided to include them as part of the making of my gate. She had no idea what I was working towards. When I started constructing the tassels, then putting them together, she saw what I was trying to achieve and wanted to assist in the making.

The next step was making long paper strips. There were 1110 strips altogether. The number is not significant, but I had a vision to realise a structure of a floating gate, and by the time I did the calculation, it was a beautiful round number. The Chinese characters written on it were a poem by Li Bai, about the moon. It's a poem I grew up with that I could recite so precisely with its intonation, but I didn't know how to read or write it. My mum made me recite the poem as a child every day before I left for school. I've recited it all my life until now, and I decided the poem is a true reflection of my being and had to be incorporated into that gate.

Every time someone crosses that threshold or that gate, you think of home. Or every time I cross that gate, I think of home.

Tearing the paper

For this project, I learned how to do calligraphy from my mum. She did the writing, and I mimicked her. In her own words, she knew she could "draw blood out" by watching me do it, obviously dissatisfied with my handwriting and skills. But I practised that.

I told her in the end that I had this idea: I'm not going to use the whole sheet, so no one's going to see the full characters, so you don't have to be embarrassed. I'm going to tear it. She was horrified by the fact that after it had been practised and written into a script, I would tear it. I said to her, "That was because you know how you said I'm Chinese, but I'm not Chinese enough? I know I recite the poem, but I still don't read or write it. That's how I feel about not fitting in and constantly questioning my identity and traversing between my cultural space". I feel like, "You know, this is written, but I'm stripping it as a whole. I'm Chinese, but if I were to strip it apart, some bits and pieces don't quite match". I think the poetry is there; that's what I was trying to relate to her. There was a sadness in her eyes as she saw that I had those thoughts about what she said about me. I think perhaps she didn't really realise how that had impacted me.

It was on Chinese Xuan paper. After I stripped it, and I connected and joined it because they only come in a certain size, then I waxed it. I really wanted to have that transparency of the paper coming through with the text from the back when the light comes up.

I had to put another layer of muslin fabric over the top to strengthen the fragility of the paper, then I incorporated an eyelet in the muslin fabric so that it could be looped around an acrylic rod with cable ties. I did the entire calculation with my Excel sheets for the width, length and depth. So, I'd know the approximate dimensions of the installation. There is a total of 23 layers altogether.

✿

Li Bai "Quiet Night Thought" (靜夜思 - Jìng Yè Sī)

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡

Before my bed, bright moonlight gleams,
I wonder if it's frost on the ground.
Raising my head, I gaze at the bright moon,
Lowering my head, I think of home.

✿

The conversation also touches on other interpretations of "gates". Jacky recounts learning about the "Common Gate" in Broome, a historical site where Aboriginal people were forced to stay out of town after dark. This gate, though no longer physically present, is only a surviving post that still exists to this day as a "memory of all this trauma".

Paradoxically, the moon poem in Jacky's gateway transcends those kinds of spatial divisions, pointing to a space where there can be a lot of movement or journeying without the normal types of policing or borders that occur on land, much like migrating birds or shared celestial stories. The moon, with its universal presence and the myriad stories connected to it across cultures, reminds people of specific natural cycles that still exist despite the focus on politics and contemporary affairs. Jacky sees "so much power and so much beauty in the celestial world," urging a focus on the "big picture".

About Jacky Cheng

Jacky Cheng was born in Malaysia of Chinese heritage. She received her Bachelor of Architecture (Honours 1) from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She is an artist, a facilitator and an art educator based in Broome, Western Australia. Visit jackycheng.com.au, follow @jackychengart and like facebook.com/jackychengart

China | G40 | gate | Jacky Cheng | moon | paper | Western Australia

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Jacky Cheng Jacky Cheng talks about the epic evolution of her Paifang gate, from dyeing workshops in Laos to a mother-daughter collaboration in Broome. In 2024, Jacky Cheng was invited to participate in an exhibition, The Neighbour at the Gate, curated by Clothilde Bullen, Michael Do, and Zali Morgan.

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When heavenly arts moved from London to Caboolture 

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When heavenly arts moved from London to Caboolture 

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When heavenly arts moved from London to Caboolture | Garland Magazine

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Sadu House, Arabian Gulf Street, Kuwait City, Kuwait

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Karajarri Lands Association, Cable Beach Road East, Cable Beach WA

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Pilgrimage of the Hajjanaut | Garland Magazine

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Biosphere Boodja: Clay creatures on giant domes

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Biosphere Boodja: Clay creatures on giant domes

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Vanessa Gould

Vanessa Gould tells of Fleur Schell's journey from childhood enchantment to shared appreciation of Country with Aunty Tracey de Grussa.

A farmyard tip might not seem like the most poetic place for an epiphany, but West Australian ceramicist Fleur Schell knows how to grab inspiration wherever it hits.

Five generations of family detritus reveals itself in layers of dirt on her family farm near the wheatbelt farm of Goomalling on the edge of WA's Avon Valley. At the deepest layer, there is heavy sheet metal, probably welded by a long-gone predecessor. Then come the lighter commercial pieces of metal, then the plastic precursor Bakelite, then, closest to the surface, the most common artefacts of the modern age, plastic.

But the object as time-traveller has, in Schells' mind, recently leapt from a span of hundreds of years of family history to the many tens of thousands of years of ancestral time. And that's not just from the Aboriginal artefacts that are increasingly being unearthed from Goomalling's rich agricultural soil, now local farmers know what to look for.

Through a growing friendship with Nyungar Ballardong elder Tracey de Grussa, the chair of the region's Ballardong Aboriginal Corporation, Schell has learned to experience the land of her childhood home in an entirely new way. It has changed her understanding of her own ceramic art objects and how she passes this knowledge onto others.

For Schell, growing up in WA's clay country meant she was always immersed in geological time. The clay pan on the edge of her family's dam was, she later discovered, kaolin deposited from a billion years of granite eroding from the nearby Darling Scarp, the world's oldest fault line.

"That's why Ballardong country is so amazing, because all the weathering that's gone on has created this kaolin that is the main ingredient in porcelain," she says.

Schell has one of the country's finest reputations for working with porcelain to create whimsical sculptural pieces, using skills honed over three decades of studying, teaching and exhibiting widely and running her own artists' residency programs in Perth. She taught in Canada for many years, and has exhibited and presented in the US, Scotland, Finland, Singapore, Indonesia and China.

Schell refers to "the five tiny brains at the end of my fingertips" she now wants to use to "give back - to do more than making more pots and selling them".

It has led her to establish a new country arts project which is busting her art out of the art gallery and into the wild outdoors, using art to engage the wider rural community, but particularly the kind of country kid that she once was.

Schell initially sought Aunty Tracey's cultural advice to bring an Indigenous perspective to the international and national delegates attending Wedge, the four-day Australian Ceramic Triennale in Fremantle from October 2 to 5. Those many hours of country visits and conversations have now become the Biosphere Boodja Arts and Wild Things Festival 2025 in the tiny town two hours north-east of Fremantle, over Sunday, September 28 to Monday, September 29.

The festival has grown from the friendship between the two women who grew up in very different worlds. It is the backstory of the dual English and Nyungar naming of Biosphere, and Boodja, often translated as country, but to Aunty Tracey, simply everything: the earth, the air, the water, the people, the plants, the animals.

Schell has come to realise that the instinctive, haptic knowledge of her strong clay makers' hands can help children lighten their load as they traverse the anxiety-ridden terrain of modern childhood and adolescence.

For the first half of this year, Schell volunteered as an artist in residence at the two primary schools in her old hometown. Kids who often didn't come to school never missed her class, as they were nudged to think deeply about the porcelain birds and animals they were making (are their claws like our fingers? Are their eyes like mine?). Their biggest complaint was that she made time go too quickly, as they fell into an unfamiliar flow-state where time ceased to exist. All without a single digital device in sight.

"I tell the kids that they are building time machines when they are working with porcelain. I say, 'Just imagine your great-great-great grandchildren digging this up in the garden one day, and it will still contain your fingerprint.' That blows their little minds."

At the heart of the festival are two giant articulated puppets made by the town's children, one of which is Aunty Tracey's first totem animal, the possum. The other is of Schell's imaginary childhood friend, the wheat whale, which would circle protectively underneath the shimmering wheat crop as she perched high on her favourite granite outcrop. Both objects are then transformed into light, flying up onto the town's distinctive grain domes as Vivid-festival style light paintings, produced by audio-visual artist Steven Alyian.

The two women's childhood stories could not be more different, even though only a little more than a decade separates them in age. Schell grew up barefoot-roaming and motorbike-riding on her parents' property, with a trailing menagerie of pet corella, emu, kangaroo and sheepdog. Aunty Tracey's people were often kept away from the towns in fear of white authorities, a legacy of past stolen generation policies which hit hard in WA's history. But she always knew the ancient stories of her great-grandmother's Ballardong Country, through stories from her mother, handed down from her grandfather.

Today, when they sit together on that same granite outcrop, Aunty Tracey gives Schell guidance to feel how the land is talking to her and how to listen to it. Aunty Tracey was given her possum totem by her great-grandmother, the same totem given to her great-grandmother by her old people. Later, she was also given the totem of the echidna, the nyingarn, and then she chose to take another one herself, "the djidi djidi, the willy wagtail."

"Today, I always say to the little ones they can always choose their own totem if they like, so they can pick an animal or a plant that they like, anything that we need to look after.

"We didn't take what we wanted from the earth; we only ever took what was needed for that day, not for tomorrow or the next day, because you always thought of who came after us. Look after our boodja and in turn our boodja will look after us, as it has been done by my people since the first sunrise. The totem system was born, it was our elders' way of making sure that everything on earth was taken care of. We are the carers of everything. Everyone who lives on this country, we are all the carers of everything."

Protecting biodiversity is a central theme of many of the works of the 12 predominantly ceramic artists exhibiting inside the festival's crop circle art installation. Schell's installation "The Wheat Whale" will carry her porcelain native animal friends and be surrounded by the school children's own creations.

"Today my craft practice is centred around storytelling and re-wilding the imagination," Schell notes. "Every day I think about how I can create a room or habitat in the imagination for species we are losing.

"We should be discussing the spiritual power an object has in shifting our perspective in such a way it changes our daily habits.

"The challenge we face as we continue to evolve into a more secular society is that we are losing the ability to imagine. Science and incomprehensible data have replaced those powerful objects, that throughout history inspired us to imagine a Christian heaven, a Buddhist nirvana or Indigenous dreamtime."

Craft practitioners, Schell notes, also have the expertise to make objects that explore the relationship between the inevitable and the surprise. "When an object reflects something familiar, it acts as a hook that draws us all in. When you combine this with something magical or surprising, something we didn't see coming, it helps us to see, hear, taste, smell and feel our surroundings differently. Otherwise, we see what we think we see and not what is really there.

"I use the stabilising, concrete nature of ceramics as a leaping off point for our imagination. As the English artist and stage designer Es Devlin wrote, 'The suspension of disbelief requires the grit of reality'. So my ceramic objects give imagination form," she says.

For Schell, a quotation from English ecological philosopher Timothy Morton lies at the core of both her recent ecological porcelain work and the festival she has designed to inspire the next generation: "He wrote that you don't change people's behaviour by preaching. Artists need to amaze us into a perspective shift."

About Vanessa Gould

Vanessa Gould is a freelance writer who worked as a journalist on metropolitan newspapers in Western Australia and Hong Kong, later working in public affairs for the British Government and then in corporate communications in Perth, Western Australia, where she is based. Her return to features writing about the arts is a reminder that her favourite people on newspapers were always the photographers and graphic artists. In retrospect, this should have told her something. She is currently the volunteer communications manager for the Biosphere Boodja Arts and Wild Things Festival, where Fleur Schell is creative director.

ceramics | G40 | puppetry | Western Australia

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Biosphere Boodja: Clay creatures on giant domes

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Vanessa Gould Vanessa Gould tells of Fleur Schell's journey from childhood enchantment to shared appreciation of Country with Aunty Tracey de Grussa. A farmyard tip might not seem like the most poetic place for an epiphany, but West Australian ceramicist Fleur Schell knows how to grab inspiration wherever it hits.

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Tāwhaki’s journey to the realms of wisdom above

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Tāwhaki’s journey to the realms of wisdom above

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https://garlandmag.com/article/tawhaki/

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Tāwhaki’s journey to the realms of wisdom above | Garland Magazine

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Kailash Parvat, Burang County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet, China

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https://garlandmag.com/article/kailash/

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Heavenly jewels to ascend Kailash | Garland Magazine

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East Coast Park Service Road, East Coast Park, Singapore

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Dou Mu, Mother of Stars of the Northern Dipper

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Dou Mu, Mother of Stars of the Northern Dipper

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https://garlandmag.com/article/dou-mu/

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Dou Mu, Mother of Stars of the Northern Dipper | Garland Magazine

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Canterbury Cathedral, The Precincts, Canterbury, UK

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moon landing: A lunar collaboration of weaving and music

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moon landing: A lunar collaboration of weaving and music

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https://garlandmag.com/article/moon-landing/

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moon landing: A lunar collaboration of weaving and music | Garland Magazine

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Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation, E Coast Rd, Dunwich QLD

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https://garlandmag.com/article/skyways/

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Bonne Aventure ✿ How stars come to earth

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Bonne Aventure ✿ How stars come to earth

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Loraine Savary

Loraine Savary of Rousse tells the story of celestial ceramic works that promise good fortune.

Stéphanie d'Ardier and Loraine Savary met at Arts et Techniques Céramiques in Paris while studying wheel throwing. At that time, Stéphanie was a general secretary for a think tank focused on economic subjects, and Loraine was an editor of fine art books. Over time, they developed a unique method of collaboration, which led to their joint brand, Rousse, in reference to the red moon. They produce sculptural lights and small furniture, bas-reliefs and sculptures.

A childhood passion

✿ So, how did the interest in ceramics begin?

Stéphanie started ceramics when she was a kid, but then stopped. When she was a young adult, she had a dream one night that she would go back to ceramics and put her hands in clay. The next morning, she went on the web and checked for a studio where she could go. From this moment on, it never left her, and she always had her hands in clay while working in other areas. It's some kind of an awakening. She had this dream, and she couldn't do anything apart from doing it and going for it.

For me, it's a bit different. I started ceramics when I was three years old with hand-building, and it's always been a huge part of my life. When I started working in publishing, I started having really long hours of work, and I needed something to take me out of it, just for a few hours. So I went back to ceramics. I stopped for three or four years due to a lack of time. When I came back, I found a studio in Paris where I could go once a week, and then it was twice a week, and then three times a week, and then I installed the studio in my own flat, in my kitchen. From one thing to the other, it took so much time, and I saw that the passion I had for ceramics was getting even bigger than the passion for books. So I decided to just dive into it and put my whole life, just for it.

So it's just a childhood passion for both of us. We lived with it differently, but we went back to something that was really carved in us in some way.

✿ I see. So obviously it's a lot more tangible than being an editor. It's something you do with your hands, and you have something physical to engage with.

For instance, we made coffee table books also, and some of them were really nice, with the paper and the way it was made. But it's different because you don't have the material in your hands, and this material is special compared to wood, metal or even stone. The thing with clay is that it changes throughout the process. When you start working with it, it's soft and plastic, and then when it dries, it becomes less and less plastic. You need to follow the rhythm of the material and not the other way around.

Material philosophy

✿ What philosophy underlies your work?

Our philosophy includes minimising clay per project, recycling any little dust of clay, and selecting the appropriate clay for each purpose. We choose porcelain for its translucency, and earthenware (terracotta) for its plasticity and lower firing temperature, which makes it a more environmentally conscious choice than stoneware for certain applications. I have a deep affection for earthenware because its body is really fine, soft, and adaptable. I also deeply love how porcelain interacts with light, creating dynamic plays of shadows. We wouldn't, for example, do a stool in porcelain because it would be wasteful. We believe that when you create objects, you need to be responsible for what you create.

The Bonne Aventure (Good Fortune) series

✿ What's the story of your Bonne Aventure series?

The Bonne Aventure series emerged from an unexpected collaborative process. We started by exchanging advice on our individual pieces, and it solidified when a commission led us to draw together. Something happened that we don't even know how to explain, and from that first piece, we sketched a whole notebook of ideas. Since then, we've worked together in a way where we no longer know who does what in our pieces.

Our collaboration is very intuitive, similar to children playing. When kids play, they don't explicitly direct each other; they just do it, and ideas flow freely. It's a creative life intertwined with our personal lives.

We often create individual sketches for projects, and then we combine elements from each other's drawings.

We often create individual sketches for projects, and then we combine elements from each other's drawings. We frequently use translucent pages to overlay and manipulate designs, keeping core lines while introducing new elements. The moment a design "works" is an intuitive realisation. We recently completed a design in half a day, and we don't know how we knew it was finished, but it just was.

The crystal ball was an iconic object that had become outdated but gained relevance again with a renewed interest in spirituality. Our reinterpretation used porcelain's translucency to play with light. We created a rounded sphere from small, superimposed half-coins to form a pattern resembling a palm leaf. The goal was to infuse the object with a sense of mystery, moving beyond its traditional association with divination, and symbolically bringing it to life.

The name "Bonne Aventure" was inspired by the reader of fortunes. The series itself explores themes of fate and destiny through everyday objects transformed into sculptures. These are not just lamps or tables, but sculptural lights and side tables designed to hold a special place in interiors. The series' vocabulary is rooted in spiritual architecture, incorporating pure lines, curves, and small elements that together create a cohesive whole addressing fate, destiny, and the influence of stars in both astrological and astronomical contexts.

We use gold leaf to represent stars, the sun, and the moon, adding a sense of light without external illumination. The gold leaf also highlights the clay's texture, allowing for different nuances and creating a distinct play of light. For instance, a piece inspired by spiritual architecture and stained glass combines different elements to create unity through dissociation, with three central elements highlighted by gold leaf. The textures, like the scratched clay in wing-like forms, are designed to give a sense of expansion to the viewer. Elements like a small gilded rounded shape feature a spiral pattern to draw the viewer in, while a larger central shape has different scratch directions, creating visual contrast that highlights the clay's colour. This intentional use of texture and light aims to entice the viewer and reveal new meanings.

The sphere, a central symbol in our work, represents fate, life, and time.

The sphere, a central symbol in our work, represents fate, life, and time. It's meticulously crafted to conceal its construction as two halves, challenging the viewer to understand its making. The torn, old-like effect of the gold leaf on some pieces, achieved through a precise and random application process, symbolises that "life has scratches". Some unique pieces, like those relating to the "Lunaris" or "red moon" concept, were born from serendipitous accidents during creation, which we liken to the "Kellogg's effect" [the failed attempt to make granola that resulted in "corn flakes"].

We have created close to 90 pieces in this series, maybe more. We don't intend to close it. We prefer to see where our creativity leads us. The series is guided by a consistent thread of shapes, lines, curves, and light play, with each piece inspiring the next. It's an open-ended artistic journey.

The series is profoundly human, celebrating our creative partnership. It wasn't made on purpose, but the name "Bonne aventure" also signifies "good adventure," and for us, it's not only a creative or artistic adventure; it's a human one because we met each other. If Stephanie were here, she'd agree; we're like "the two birds that are inseparable". This truly human aspect is really important to both of us. Our studio, full of light and plants, serves as the nurturing environment for this ongoing human and artistic journey.

Where to see

Visit rousse-ceramics.com, follow @ rousseceramics and read the Homo Faber Guide profile.

ceramics | France | G40 | Homo Faber | moon | stars

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Bonne Aventure ✿ How stars come to earth

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Loraine Savary Loraine Savary of Rousse tells the story of celestial ceramic works that promise good fortune. Stéphanie d'Ardier and Loraine Savary met at Arts et Techniques Céramiques in Paris while studying wheel throwing. At that time, Stéphanie was a general secretary for a think tank focused on economic subjects, and Loraine was an editor of fine art books.

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Ramayana Reimagined: A tale with a thousand voices

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Ramayana Reimagined: A tale with a thousand voices

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Ramayana Reimagined: A tale with a thousand voices | Garland Magazine

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A driftwood testament | Garland Magazine

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Bukittinggi, Bukittinggi City, West Sumatra, Indonesia

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Woven in stone: Bringing ancient Indonesia to life on the loom

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Woven in stone: Bringing ancient Indonesia to life on the loom

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Woven in stone: Bringing ancient Indonesia to life on the loom | Garland Magazine

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The Rest of Us: Soft publishing as an act of radical care

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The Rest of Us: Soft publishing as an act of radical care

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The Rest of Us: Soft publishing as an act of radical care | Garland Magazine

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The NFT Mother of God | Garland Magazine

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Zhihui North 2 St, Hanting District, Weifang, Shandong, China

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Tammy Wong Hulbert

Tammy Wong Hulbert journeys from her home on Wurundjeri country to the land of her ancestors in Siew Chek Hum village, southern China.

﻿ ﻿
(A message to the reader.)

I speak from the voice of being an Australian-born Chinese female artist, fascinated by my paternal family's long and fragmented connections between China and Australia over five generations since 1884. Responding to this long history through art and craft making using hand embroidery, textiles, installation and performance, I wanted to express the complex dimensions of 'home' as part of the Chinese-Australian diaspora living on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people here in Victoria.

My recent project Wong Mobile Ancestral Hall (2024) attempted to converse and grapple with this complexity through the depiction of my ancestral home of 小赤坎 (Siew Chek Hum / Xiao Chi Kan) village, Guangdong Province, China, as a mobile ancestral home. Transforming a small suitcase into ancestral architecture, I carried my ancestral home (my baggage) on my back, as part of a walking residency On Country/In Residence (October 2024) on ngurrak barring (meaning mountain path in Woi Wurrung language). This is a newly established public art and heritage walk across Mount Corhanwarrabul (aka The Dandenong Ranges). I walked with a group of local artists supported by Wurundjeri elders and knowledge holders. It is also where I call home as a resident.

As an artist trained in the applied arts, I am passionate about how crafted objects can metaphorically represent our valued journeys, memories, rituals and stories of places, people and communities. In considering my family's long and complex migration between China and Australia, I focused my attention on the gap between our lived experience as a Chinese family in Australia and how our family was perceived under "White Australia" policy conditions (1901-mid 1970s) which viewed Chinese families, as othered, foreign and suspicious.

In the late nineteenth century, my Great Grandfather, 黄成福 (Wong Sing Foo /Huang Cheng Fu), decided to sail to Australia from southern China, leaving from Hong Kong to seek work. His documents show he lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Cobar and Molong. He established himself predominantly in Cobar in central NSW, on Wongaibon Country, where he was a mining labourer, mining shareholder in copper and gold, a market gardener and mobile green grocer. After 34 years, he returned to China with his wife Ah Kue and his Australian-born children, reestablishing themselves in 前山 (Qian San / Qian Shan), China, near Macau.

Reflecting on this history, I dared to ask, "Who were we before we arrived in Australia?"

Wong Sing Foo's children later returned to Sydney. His son, Fred Wong, was known in Sydney as a Chinese community leader and humanitarian (1930s-40s). He was viewed with suspicion during the burgeoning Cold War (1947-1989) as reflected in Commonwealth Investigative Service (CIS) files found through the National Archives of Australia, mysteriously drowning in Lake Boga, Victoria (1948). Reflecting on this history, I dared to ask, "Who were we before we arrived in Australia?" Asking this question took me on a fascinating exploration to understand Chinese cultural practices of ancestral worship, leading me on a journey to find our ancestral home and consider the abstract idea of 'belonging' to a place.

Through conversations with friends, I became interested in the practice of 家谱 (gapu/ jiapu) family ancestral books, which document the family patriarchal line and are handed down through the males. I tried to find out if our family had a gapu, but to no avail, my Father, Allen, informed me that he had never encountered one, and if we had one, it is likely that the document was lost or destroyed. This occurred potentially during the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), as many of these practices had been discontinued. Being female, I speak of "belonging" as being a fraught concept, as it is not likely I would have been recorded, but I was not deterred; I kept asking questions.

During the pandemic years (2020-1), I continued to converse with my Father about our ancestral village. He had a vague recollection of my Grandfather visiting our ancestral village near our family house in Qian San when he returned in 1975, after China was closed to outsiders (1950-70s). To confirm the village name, my Father visited Fred's grave site at Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, as his traditional Chinese gravestone, listed the vital information I was seeking. On Fred's gravestone, the phrase "小赤坎人" meaning "a person of Siew Check Hum" was listed. The naming of an ancestral village is a Taoist practice, evolving from the idea that one should be buried in one's ancestral home. During the nineteenth century, it became increasingly costly and difficult to return those who had perished overseas; therefore, listing an ancestral village became a common practice, a return address for the soul.

I continued my research, learning about the Wong family's "intergenerational naming poem", in which Wong Sing Foo's middle name was chosen, based on his generation. The naming poem sets guidelines for the middle name of each male generation, over a cycle of 28 generations. Wong Sing Foo's middle name "sing" (成 / cheng) matched the poem, which confirmed our connection. Making a connection to Mr 黃 (Wong/Huang), the village manager, we organised a trip to visit Siew Chek Hum in January 2024.

From Hong Kong, we travelled to 珠海 (Zhihoi / Zhuhai), trekking out to Siew Chek Hum, about 30 km north. Nestled into the foothills of 黄杨山 (Wong Yeung / Huang Yang) Mountain, we had an incredible day exploring the town with Mr Wong, who was curious about our family, and surprised that, after so many generations, we would still be interested in our ancestral connections. We followed Mr Wong around the town centre, chatting to local people, who warmly welcomed us into their homes. Siew Chek Hum turned out to be a beautiful heritage-listed village. The town centre still contained 500-year-old rammed earth homes and intimate laneway spaces. I felt emotional as I heard the local Doumen dialect spoken for the first time and exchanged between the elderly. It didn't sound familiar to me, even though I am a Cantonese speaker.

The most exciting part of visiting the town was touring the ancestral halls. In this Wong village, there were three Wong ancestral halls 育亭黄公祠 (Yuk Ting Wong Gung Ci / Yu Ting Huang Gong Ci), 直吾黄公祠 (Zhi Mai Wong Gung Ci / Zhi Wu Huang Gong Ci), 祠公黃亭育 (Ci Gung Wong Ting Yuk / Ci Gong Huang Ting Yu), all within walking distance of each other. Two of the halls were open to the public and were still used as social spaces, mostly by elderly people enjoying the company of their friends with a game of Mahjong. The third hall, which was under renovation, was to be refurbished to become an exhibition space honouring the local ancient Laichi trees.

These beautiful halls were once where our ancestors celebrated and cherished important social events such as weddings, births, anniversaries, birthdays and deaths of each generation. Today, many of these practices have changed, as many customs are no longer practised; younger generations find it more convenient to celebrate at larger restaurants with modern facilities. Although ancestors' images are no longer up in the hall, the smoke of the incense burning continues to honour and connect us to those who were here before.

As an Australian with Chinese immigrant roots, I wanted to honour my Cantonese heritage by finding ways to bring together my ancestral home with my physical home in Mt Corhanwarrabul, Victoria. From one mountain to another, I achieved a metaphoric converging of two concepts of home through a performative walk, carrying my re-imagined ancestral home whilst respectfully walking on and experiencing Wurundjeri country.

About Tammy Wong Hulbert

Tammy Wong Hulbert is an artist, curator and academic at RMIT University School of Art, in the Masters of Arts (Arts Management) specialising in curating. The artwork produced from the walking residency On Country/In Residence (2024) will be part of the exhibition ngurrak-al marram-u / body of the mountain, Burrinja Gallery, May 24- 13 July, 2024, curated by Gretel Taylor, Gülsen Özer and Mandy Nicholson (Wurundjeri artist). Artists featured included Aarti Jadu, Rebecca Murray, Mandy Nicholson, Jill Orr, Gulsen Ozer, Laki Sideris, Gretel Taylor and Tammy Wong Hulbert.

ancient | Buddhism | China | G39 | storied object | Victoria

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Tammy Wong Hulbert Tammy Wong Hulbert journeys from her home on Wurundjeri country to the land of her ancestors in Siew Chek Hum village, southern China. ﻿ ﻿ (A message to the reader.) I speak from the voice of being an Australian-born Chinese female artist, fascinated by my paternal family's long and fragmented connections between China and Australia over five generations since 1884.

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Takashi Wakamiya ✿ Lacquer master and founder of Hikoju Makie

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Takashi Wakamiya ✿ Lacquer master and founder of Hikoju Makie

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Takashi Wakamiya ✿ Lacquer master and founder of Hikoju Makie | Garland Magazine

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Lasem, Rembang Regency, Central Java, Indonesia

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The Guardian Tiger: Ancestral Protection

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The Guardian Tiger: Ancestral Protection

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The Guardian Tiger: Ancestral Protection | Garland Magazine

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The tale of Nneburube | Garland Magazine

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Nonna’s Abundant Protection from the Malocchio

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Nonna’s Abundant Protection from the Malocchio

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Nonna’s Abundant Protection from the Malocchio | Garland Magazine

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Mai Nguyễn-Long

Mai Nguyễn-Long takes on her journey to discover her lost connection to village culture in Vietnam.

﻿ ﻿
(A message to the reader.)

Attempting to speak her mother tongue, Vomit Girl invokes armies of spirits to demystify her guttural utterances. The Vomit Girl Project 2024, an installation of over 220 clay sculptures, is on display at GOMA until 13 July 2025, a recent feature of The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA. Formally commencing in 2017, this ongoing project pays homage to my 1994 encounter with đình woodcarvings in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam-an experience that introduced me to the concept of mộc mạc. That year, excursions across more than thirteen different đình revealed woodcarvings so enchanting that they temporarily dislodged the war images and motifs of exclusionary diasporic politics that had come to shape my identity.

Twenty years later, Vomit Girl's appearance in my visual diary signalled a spiritual illness, which I deduced could only be addressed by reconnecting with Vietnam. My resolve developed into an urgent desire to learn from my father's photo archive and my mother's extensive research. As my Vietnamese language had weakened, these materials provided crucial guidance for reclaiming and rebuilding parts of my identity I had earnestly erased. Over a five-year period, I read and reread a deceptively simple article by my mum, Kerry Nguyễn-Long, on đình woodcarving, published in Arts of Asia (2015). This helped me come to terms with the magnitude of my perceived loss. At this point, more than two decades after my first visit, đình were less accessible. While the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum holds an invaluable permanent display of replica woodcarvings, these do not replace the mysticism of an on-site experience.

The earliest surviving đình dates back to 1576. A place to worship village guardians, the đình was centrally located to serve administrative, cultural and religious functions for an entire village. They also functioned as an emotional centre, honouring the idea that spirit, feeling and continuity are a holistic part of humanity where arts practices are not isolated arenas of research. Rich in folklore, đình woodcarvings provide insight into village arts, many of which are ephemeral. In 1904, the French colonial government fractured the spiritual administrative structure of đình by instating secular governance structures, dismantling social cohesion and order. Many đình were destroyed as a result of this.

My drive to understand the essence of my đình encounters occurred alongside a serendipitous residency in the historic ceramic village of Bát Tràng in 2015. After my third year working with clay, as well as further research trips and reading, I began to dream and think in the medium itself. Around this time, Haunted Fairy, one of my numerous iterations of Vomit Girl, emerged through the clay - a living substance now sharing stories of its own. It became a conduit for my buried đình encounters. Like the faded faces of đình fairies, of apsara lineage, her eyes were absent, a detail I identified with inner clarity.

I was now confident that clay could provide me with a much-needed anchor. My clay sculptures took on a life beyond their cultural origin, evoking a wide range of mythologies about our connection to the earth. The making itself, particularly wedging and coiling, connected me with Mother Goddess (Đạo Mẫu) processes of engaging with and reimagining stories through dance. Clay was guiding me towards discovering hidden stories. Instead of representing preconceived ideas, it exposed me to expansive realms where humans are not at the centre.

In my early attempts at reading Vietnamese books about the đình, I came across the term mộc mạc. My Vietnamese-English dictionary informed me it meant rustic, simple or even uncouth. However, I felt mộc mạc held clues to so much more. I no longer wish to translate it. It is linked to the sensibilities of a yin-leaning yin yang wet rice agricultural society. Mộc mạc is a framework associated with the early nature goddesses of Vietnam who still inform the basis of contemporary folklore practices, yet often severed from modern art critique.

Following the more restrictive Neo-Confucian Lê Sơ dynasty (1428-1527), the Mạc dynasty (1527-1592) created circumstances where popular religion and associated spiritual activities of the đình could flourish. The woodcarvings that intrigue me most date between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. They convey a creative immediacy, pragmatic realism, communal spirit and strong sense of humour. Through these carved vignettes, villages tell their own stories outside of religious or imperial orthodoxies and Confucian propriety.

By the nineteenth century, scenes of village life all but disappeared as the vignettes became more disciplined and formulaic in response to the changing political circumstances of Confucian-oriented dynastic rule and French colonisation. In contrast, under the Mạc, many new đình were built or renovated. Notably, Liễu Hạnh, one of Vietnam's most powerful and enduring multifunctional goddesses, was born during this period in 1557. Today she continues to hold an unrivalled position at the top of the contemporary Mother Goddess pantheon in northern Vietnam.

Although I had already unknowingly witnessed a Mother Goddess ritual, it was in 1996 that artist Đặng Thị Khuê enthusiastically invited me to participate in one, and Khuê, who spoke so passionately to me about m ộc mạc. While Khuê sees m ộc mạc as a humane aesthetic, connecting humans with nature and the Vietnamese soul, the dispassionate contemporary art historian Phạm Trung describes mộc mạc as mere pragmatism in response to the harsh climate, war and poor economy in northern Vietnam.

These primordial and practical insights, grounded in clay, helped shape my response to seeing the bombshell repurposed as a bell outside a village đình. In tandem with my expanding conceptualisation of mộc mạc, the bomb casing cum bell located in a đình courtyard became a pivot to unlock the genesis of my 1996 disconnection with from the đình. Using the protective symbology of my Worana coil building concept, I challenged the horror of the bomb casing. And now, translated into a non-metal clay form, my Doba defy victimhood. Out of these building blocks emerged The Vomit Girl Project and all my Vomit Girl iterations in clay.

In the 1930s, when anti-colonial sentiments were on the rise, the brown, earthy palette, which I now think of as mộc mạc, of silk painter Nguyễn Phan Chánh entered the debate about what aesthetic characteristics asserted Vietnameseness. Struggles for independence from France gave rise to an effervescence in popular religion, particularly Mother Goddess worship, throughout the country. Fast-forward to the height of communist policies, ritual practices such as Mother Goddess worship were thought of as depraved superstition, taking advantage of the vulnerable. Đình were used as a grain storage. Vomit Girl's interconnected but compulsively evolving forms have been inspired by how folkloric practices have persisted through different forms of suppression, morphed, grafted, continued in secret, and adapted. Likewise, Vomit Girl adapts to different physical spaces, timeframes and circumstances, rising to the challenge of creative and collaborative resolutions.

Hence, mộc mạc is perhaps most superficially conveyed through my unglazed clays and earthenware feel, but more deeply through Vomit Girl's very presence, her replicating and playful persistence. These traits and her alter-moniker as Vigit, Goddess of Infected Tongues for all Those Who Have Lost Their Mother Tongue, have become my gesture to privilege spiritual functionality over theorisations of 'beauty' from a European art historical perspective, inseparable from the colonial matrix of power. Through this journeying I have come to link mộc mạc with the history of resistance in Vietnam and thereby build my own personalised form of creative resilience.

Hence, when Vomit Girl initially came to me in a drawing and by the time I knew she was not going away, I accepted her as a sign to go with her to Vietnam. This has become a journey of endless questioning, language barriers, and snippets of discovery I try to piece together to find meaning in a 'broken' world. In this way, The Vomit Girl Project has been a journey towards unravelling the mystery of m ộc mạc. Contradictorily, being grounded in continuous fluidity is the place between non-static boundaries where Vomit Girl and her expanding entourage reside, continuously evolving to evade domination - a belonging defined by transformations.

About Mai Nguyễn-Long

Mai Nguyễn-Long is a visual artist based in Dharawal Country, Bulli. Tasmanian-born to a Vietnamese father and a fourth-generation Mother of Irish and Samoan descent, her formative years were spent in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. In 2023, she was awarded a practice-based PhD for her thesis exploring the interconnection between contemporary art and folkloric practices in Vietnam. Represented by Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin, Mai works on projects in Scotland and Vietnam. Follow @ mainguyenlong.

Sources

Nguyễn, Đỗ Cung. Việt Nam: Điêu khắc dân gian thế kỷ XVI - XVII - XVIII [Vietnam: Popular Sculpture 16th - 17th - 18th Centuries]. Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Ngoại Văn [Foreign Languages Publishing House], 1975.

Nguyễn-Long, Mai (2023). Vomit Girl Beyond Diasporic Trauma: Interconnecting Contemporary Art and Folkloric Practices in Vietnam. University of Wollongong. Thesis. https://hdl.handle.net/10779/uow.27666564.v1

Nguyễn-Long, Kerry. "Woodcarvings in Communal Halls (Dinh) in northern Vietnam: Themes, Influences, Continuity, Change." Arts of Asia 45, no. 4 (July-August 2015): 129-143.

ceramics | G39 | Vietnam

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Finding Vomit Girl: A pilgrimage to the source of mộc mạc

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Mai Nguyễn-Long Mai Nguyễn-Long takes on her journey to discover her lost connection to village culture in Vietnam. ﻿ ﻿ (A message to the reader.) Attempting to speak her mother tongue, Vomit Girl invokes armies of spirits to demystify her guttural utterances.

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Data archeology in clay | Garland Magazine

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Stories, theatre and worship: The sacred masks of Majuli 

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Stories, theatre and worship: The sacred masks of Majuli 

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Stories, theatre and worship: The sacred masks of Majuli | Garland Magazine

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Motta San Giovanni, Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, Italy

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Lella Cariddi

Lella Cariddi gathers the material history of her Italian forebears in honour of their journey across the world.

In 2024, I was one of five Italian-Australian artists invited to participate in the ethnographic, multigenerational exhibition titled: " Memories That Make Us- Home Is a Distant Shore: Stories of Post World War Two, Italian Migration to Australia" - Proudly presented by CO. AS. IT. Italian Assistance Association, in partnership with Deakin University.

The circumstances which motivated our father, Giovanni Cariddi, to leave our large extended family and all he knew in our hometown of Motta San Giovanni, on the toe of Italy, to migrate to Australia, are linked to World War II. From 1939 to 1947, our father was in North-East Africa. For more than six of those years, he was a prisoner of war in Kenya.

Being born after my father joined the Italian Army, we first met when he was repatriated in 1947. After a short recovery period at home, he left again to work in northern Italy, returning home once a year at Christmas. In 1950, when he moved to Australia, it took him five years to save the money to buy the tickets for our sea passage from Naples to Melbourne, on the SS Oronsay. By the time we were united as a family in 1955, I was fifteen-and-three-quarters, my sister Maria six-and-a-half, and my sister Sally was four-and-a-half years of age when she met our father for the very first time.

I invited both my sisters and visual artist Liliana Barbieri to assist me with the selection of artefacts for a wall installation and two installations in vitrines. These represent our family's migration story and our mother's ingenuity, creativity, and connections.

The wall installation features: 1. A seven-minute documentary. 2. A bilingual panel (English/Italian) titled: "While our mother waited", in homage of our mother's resilience during our father's long absences. 3. An ivory-coloured bedspread, colourfully decorated in rococo style with stencil painted cherubs and courting lovers in the centre, which our mother bought for my trousseau when I was still in primary school.

Up to the 1980s, in southern Italy, the dowry, "dota," was an essential part of the marriage tradition. It served as a formal contract between families. If the bride's family were from the moneyed elite, they'd give their daughter landholdings or a house. While the less well-off put together a trousseau of "biancheria" for the future bride, which consisted of: petticoats and other intimate under-garments; sheets and pillowcases; tablecloths and serviettes; cushion covers and loom-woven towels. All were home-made and embroidered by hand. And bedspreads, some crocheted and some bought. They were all in half-dozen lots, stored in a treasure-chest "baule", lined with taffeta.

The installation in vitrine one features: 1. A much treasured fine cotton bedsheet, intricately hand-embroidered across the top edge, by our mother in Italy during the 1930s, using the drawn thread technique to give form to delicate white-on-white cherubs and flowers. Sally fondly remembers that when one of us came down with a childhood illness, in preparation for the doctor's home visit, our mother would put us in her double bed, dressed with this sheet.

A red felt hat that our mother had made-to-measure for me when I was three.

An assortment of airmail letters and embossed vellum cards from family and friends, which were a source of spiritual sustenance for our parents.

A studio photo of our father as a five-year-old, in an outfit that his father had sent from New York.

Our father's Morse code operator wartime medals, and membership card.

The elegant pigeon-grey shoes our mother wore when she disembarked.

The teak elephant with ivory tusks, which our mother bought for Sally, in Colombo.

A mantle clock and a jewellery box, given to our mother as parting gifts, which she kept on her dressing-table.

Our mother was the third daughter in a family of six surviving children (four daughters and two sons). The sons in the family heroically travelled far from their hometown, in search of paid work. But to protect the daughter's chastity, none of the girls in my mother's family worked outside the home. By day, they tended to the family's small land holdings. In wintertime, they harvested olives. The ripe olives were scalded and seasoned with herbs to be eaten with fresh, crusty bread. The firm ones were crushed to produce olive oil. In summer, they sharpened sickles to cut and bundle up wheat stalks, which were threshed to separate the straw from the grain, which would be milled into flour. They bagged white mulberry leaves to feed the silkworms that produced silk yarn, with which they crafted elegant garments. They skinned & sun-dried prickly pears for the winter pantry. Smoked the bees out of their hives to collect fresh honey. And at night, they worked on each other's trousseau, aided by the light of an oil lamp.

Priority for acquiring a daughter's trousseau was given to the eldest, followed by the others according to seniority. Our mother was in her late twenties, before her family could afford to buy her trousseau. Tradition, craft, pride, memory, and displacement coalesce in our mother's much loved, bedsheet.

The installation in vitrine two features an assortment of multigenerational photographs from our paternal and maternal families, including one of our Aunt Nina and uncle Michele Triolo, who sponsored our father to come to Australia.

Sandra Shotlander, who visited the exhibition, wrote:

These stories of people like yourself and your family, of survival, of courage, of loss, and adaption to a foreign land are also part of our history and it is so important for them to be told. I found the combination of video, writing, photos and the objects on display deeply affecting.

The artefacts you have chosen for the story of your family, painted a picture for me of your mother, wearing those elegant Italian shoes, as she crossed the ocean to come here with you and your sisters. The lace work on the cotton sheet she had embroidered, was so delicately done.

The way the bedspread she bought for your trousseau, with the romantic scene of a man and woman from the 1700's or 1800's in the centre and Cupids at each corner, hung in the exhibition, could have been a romantic painting. And your red felt hat with the turned- up brim and faded grosgrain ribbon, somehow created a presence traversing all these stories.

Italian textiles were also very much appreciated by our Australian-born cousin Nina. Nina's daughter Antonia Mullaly sent me an article from the Bendigo Advertiser of 19 November 1962, which reads: "Veil From Italy. " The waist-length tulle veil, Chantilly lace, and white pure silk that made the gown worn by Nina Triolo for her marriage with Peter Thomas Mullaly were sent from Italy by the bride's mother's family.

✿

The Memories That Make Us exhibition, on display at MUSEO Italiano, 199 Faraday Street, Carlton, until 14 June 2025, is offered to the public within CO.AS.IT.'s Cultural Program, which has a broad diasporic focus. The foundational position of migrant memories within thiscultural program is evident in both this exhibition of disparate threads which together weave the fabric of migration, and the award - winningdocumentary, titled: "MemoriesThat Make Us: Stories of Post World War Two Italian Migration to Australia "(Martin Potter, 2021), also the fruit of a collaboration between CO.AS.IT.and Deakin University.
Photos by Adam Ricco
About Lella Cariddi

Lella Cariddi OAM is an Italian-born Australian writer, curator, and community arts practitioner renowned for her work in documenting and celebrating migrant stories and multicultural histories in Australia. Arriving in Australia in 1955, she has spent decades researching and curating multidisciplinary projects that explore the experiences of migration, identity, and belonging. Cariddi's practice spans writing, curating exhibitions, producing community arts events, and creating short-form social history documentaries. Her work is widely recognised for its contribution to cultural diversity and social inclusion, and she has been honoured with awards such as the Order of Australia Medal for her significant service to the arts and multicultural communities.

exhibition | G39 | Italy | Melbourne | safe harbour

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Lella Cariddi Lella Cariddi gathers the material history of her Italian forebears in honour of their journey across the world. In 2024, I was one of five Italian-Australian artists invited to participate in the ethnographic, multigenerational exhibition titled: " Memories That Make Us- Home Is a Distant Shore: Stories of Post World War Two, Italian Migration to Australia" - Proudly presented by CO.

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Citraland Surabaya, Jalan Citra Raya Utama, Lakarsantri, Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia

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Deep roots: Chinese Peranakan heritage in Java

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Deep roots: Chinese Peranakan heritage in Java

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https://garlandmag.com/article/peranakan/https://garlandmag.com/article/peranakan/

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Deep roots: Chinese Peranakan heritage in Java | Garland Magazine

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Urgen Dorjee Choling Buddhist Centre Singapore Temple, Lumbini Sanskritik, Nepal

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Decennial universal soul salvation during Singapore’s Hungry Ghost Month

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Decennial universal soul salvation during Singapore’s Hungry Ghost Month

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Decennial universal soul salvation during Singapore’s Hungry Ghost Month | Garland Magazine

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In search of the fili: A workshop for encountering ancestors

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In search of the fili: A workshop for encountering ancestors

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In search of the fili: A workshop for encountering ancestors | Garland Magazine

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Ègbáliganza 2025: Traditional regalia honours of the ancestors

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Ègbáliganza 2025: Traditional regalia honours of the ancestors

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Emmanuel Solate

Emmanuel Solate documents a festival that celebrates the role of Lisabi Agbongbo Akala in freeing the Egba people.

The 38th edition of the Lisabi Festival was a resounding celebration of history, heritage, and the creative evolution of the Egba people. Held on the 5th of April in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the festival honoured the enduring legacy of Lisabi Agbongbo Akala - the valiant warrior who liberated the Egba people from the tyranny of the Oyo Empire in the 18th century. This year's event, themed Ègbáliganza 2025, did more than honour a hero; it redefined cultural celebration as a dynamic tool for global visibility, economic empowerment, and artistic excellence.

The Yorubas are one of the three major tribes in the southwestern part of Nigeria. In the past centuries before the colonisation of Nigeria by the British, the capital of the Yoruba people used to be Oyo, which controlled the kingdom of all subtribes of the Yoruba people, such as the Ijebus, Egbas, Aworis, Ilajes, Ekiti, Ife, Modakeke, Owus and many others, even reaching the Ketu, now part of the present-day francophone country, Benin Republic.

The Egba people are one of the Yoruba sub-ethnic groups comprising Ake, Owu, Oke Ona and Gbagura in Ogun Central Senatorial district, which is divided into six local government areas, namely, Abeokuta North, Abeokuta South, Ewekoro, Ifo, Obafemi Owode and Odeda local governments. The Egba people migrated from the Oyo Kingdom to the Egba forests, now Abeokuta, Ogun State. The Egba subdivisions of Ake, Owu, Oke Ona and Gbagura are ruled by different kings, namely Alake of Egbaland, Olowu of Owu, Oshile of Oke Ona and the Agura of Gbagura Kingdom, respectively. Lisabi was a native of Itoku in Abeokuta, and he resided at Igbein during his time. Lisabi's feat as a warrior and a leader prompted the Egba people to reserve the right of Balogun of Egbaland to people from Igbein. As part of the annual Lisabi festival celebrations, Egba people, led by the Alake of Egbaland, always march to the Lisabi Sacred Forest (Igbo Lisabi) where the Hero is reported to have disappeared in Oba village, Obafemi/Owode Local Government, Ogun State to pay obeisance to the Egba Hero.

Between 1770 and 1780, the Oyo King, the Alaafin of Oyo, being the head of the Yoruba government, usually sent out his tribute collectors, the Ilaris, to collect taxes or tributes from all the Yoruba tribes under his domain from time to time. These tributes did not sit well with the Egba people based in Abeokuta (present-day Ogun state) because of the excesses of the Ilaris, but everyone feared the might of the Oyo army and the Alaafin. Lisabi Agbongbo Akala observed that it will not be easy to convince people to fight for their freedom from these tributes and become independent.

Hence, Lisabi devised a plan to free his people from the hold of the Oyo Empire. First, he started a cooperative for farmers called "Egbe Aro" to help them improve their yields by working together on each other's farms in rotation weekly. According to historical accounts, Lisabi assisted farmers on their farms, ensuring that he worked hard, but when it was time for these farmers to return the favour, he asked them to team up with him to fight the Ilaris in return for his services. After he had convinced all the farmers, they planned and executed a shocking attack that annihilated 600 Ilaris in 1780.

Following the revolt, the Alaafin sent an army to teach the Egba people a lesson, but they were subsequently defeated, thereby ending the years of paying tributes to the Alaafin of Oyo. Lisabi was also proactive enough to build walls and trenches around prominent cities in the Egba kingdom around that time to prevent attacks from external forces. He also formed an alliance with the Oke-Ogun people to fight the Dahomey amazon warriors. After defeating the Oyo Empire, Lisabi mysteriously disappeared in the Egba Forest, now called Igbo Lisabi. His disappearance was a myth, and it further solidified his status as a semi-god, and he has been celebrated as such ever since.

This heroic feat by Lisabi was highly revered at the time, and to this day, he remains one of the most honoured figures among Egba sons and daughters. In recognition of his bravery and enduring legacy, every Egba person proudly identifies as "Egba, Omo Lisabi," which means "Egba, child of Lisabi." Lisabi is deeply regarded as a founding ancestor and a symbol of resilience, unity, and freedom for the Egba people.

His immortal place in Egba heritage is further reflected in the Egba Anthem, composed by Canon Josiah Jesse Ransome-Kuti - the grandfather of the legendary Afrobeat pioneer, Fela Anikulapo Ransome-Kuti - on June 27, 1922:

Egba Anthem (Original Yoruba Version)

Chorus
Ma yo, ma yo, ma yo o,
L'ori Olumo
Ma yo, ma yo, ma yo o,
L'ori Olumo

(English Translation)

Chorus
Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice,
On Olumo Rock,
Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice,
Atop the Rock of Olumo.

This over 200-year-old anthem is still proudly sung in many primary and secondary schools across Abeokuta, Ogun State, to date by schoolchildren during their morning assemblies. One notable example is Lisabi High School, Abeokuta, a school named in honour of the legendary hero himself, preserving his memory and significance for future generations.

Anchored by the Alake of Egbaland, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, the festival grand finale showcased an audacious fusion of tradition and innovation. Through Ègbáliganza, a vision championed by Chief (Dr.) Lai Labode, the Osi Apagun of Egbaland, the event spotlighted the vast potential of Egba indigenous fabrics - particularly Adire and Ofi - as both cultural emblems and economic assets.

Ègbáliganza wasn't just an aesthetic spectacle; it was a strategic economic vision aimed at transforming Egbaland into a global hub for African fashion. With its $1 billion industry estimate, the initiative included exhibitions, live showcases, and royal processions designed to celebrate Egba artisanship and attract investment, tourism, and international collaboration.

Fashion as identity and statement

The visual elements of the festival were breathtaking. From Nollywood icon Richard Mofe-Damijo to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose lemon-orange Adire ensemble captivated onlookers, attendees turned the celebration into a vibrant runway of African elegance. The Alake and high chiefs in coral beads and regal attire reinforced the authenticity and deep-rooted traditions of Egbaland.

Lisabi Festival is a seven-day event that usually takes place around February and March every year, but in 2025, it was celebrated in April due to extensive preparation and rebranding. The celebration is celebrated at prominent places in Abeokuta, such as the Olumo Rock for traditional prayers for the Egba Kingdom by the Alake of Egbaland, Quiz competition at Centenary Hall, Exhibitions at Ake palace, Lisabi football competition at the M.K.O. Abiola stadium at Kuto, Abeokuta, procession to "Igbo Lisabi" (Lisabi Forest) by Egba Kings, Chiefs, Baales (sub chiefs), Egba personalities and guests, as well as the youths.

Also, Jumat prayers are held at the Central Mosque, Kobiti, Abeokuta on Friday during the week-long festival, while the grand finale is on Saturday with the "Woro" dancers drumming and dancing from various parts of the city, culminating at the Ake Palace Ground. Following the cultural exhibits, the public pays respect to the paramount king in groups, including social clubs, associations, Chiefs, and Baales. The Egba National Association presents bursaries in the US and Canada, and there are speeches, music, and social entertainment to celebrate the occasion. This aspect of the event is usually attended by the governor of Ogun state, his cabinet members and representatives from the Federal Government of Nigeria. On the final day of the festival, Sunday, a thanksgiving ceremony at the cathedral of St. Peter, Ake, Abeokuta for Christian faithful however at midnight, there is an age long ritual involving the Oro masquerade procession at midnight (it is a taboo for women to see this masquerade as it may bring about consequences such as infertility or insanity).

Global Significance Through Storytelling: LISABI on Netflix

This cultural resurgence is perfectly complemented by the LISABI movies starring an Egba son, Lateef Adedimeji, now streaming on Netflix - a cinematic retelling of the life, struggles, and triumph of the Egba legend. The film offers a global audience a front-row seat to the resilience and heroism embedded in the Egba identity. "Lisabi: The Uprising" was released in 2024, while its sequel, "Lisabi: A legend is born", was released on January 10th, 2025. Lisabi: The Uprising was among the most searched Nigerian Movies on Netflix in 2024, according to Vanguard Newspapers. Its release before this transformational festival season acts as a cultural synchrony, reintroducing the world to a community whose stories are bold, truthful, and richly inspiring.

The alignment of the festival with the LISABI movie underscores the power of narrative in Egba people's branding, ethnic and economic identity, through fabrics like Adire, Ofi, Kampala, Aran and many others. While the festival celebrates Lisabi through ceremonies, fashion, and fellowship, the Netflix film preserves his legend through a modern medium that transcends borders and generations.

A bold Egba future

The 2025 Lisabi Festival was more than a commemoration - it was a cultural renaissance, a bold assertion of Egba pride, and a visionary leap into the future. By weaving together history, heritage, fashion, film, and faith, the festival redefined what it means to honour a legacy in a modern world. Through the brilliance of Ègbáliganza, the cinematic retelling on Netflix, and the grand celebrations across Abeokuta, the Egba people have projected their identity into the global cultural conversation.

Overall, this year's Lisabi festival was not just a homage to the past; it was a deliberate repositioning of the Egba future. Through the grand and perfect alignment of fashion, film, and festivity, the Egba people are boldly reclaiming their space on the global stage. Ègbáliganza is no longer just a festival theme - it is a movement of style, substance, and strategy.

With Lisabi the movie offering cinematic testimony, and Ègbáliganza reshaping how the world sees indigenous fashion, the Egba story is being told - vividly, vibrantly, and victoriously.

As the chants of "Egba, Omo Lisabi" echoed through the city and across screens worldwide, one truth became clear - Lisabi lives on, not just in memory, but in the fabric, rhythm, and resilience of his people.

About Emmanuel Solate

Emmanuel Solate is a filmmaker, music executive, and cultural curator dedicated to showcasing Africa's rich artistic heritage on a global scale. As the CEO of ShowlateEntertainment Limited, he has been at the forefront of promoting African storytelling through film, music, and cultural festivals. A graduate of the SAE Creative Institute in London, Solate blends traditional African narratives with contemporary creative expressions, bringing the vibrancy of African culture to international audiences. Through Cultural Canvas, Solate has captured and celebrated Nigeria's most iconic festivals, such as the Opobo Nwaotam Festival, Kano Durbar, Ikeji Festival, and Ojude Oba Festival, among many others. He aims to position African art, fashion, and crafts at the heart of the global creative industry, uniting thousands of artists and cultural influencers to tell authentic African stories. In 2025, Solate will launch Cultural Canvas Art & Festivals Exhibitions on March 8, 2025, at the FCT Exhibition Pavilion Centre, Garki, Abuja, Nigeria. The exhibition will be themed "Preserving Nigeria's Cultural Heritage: Leveraging Art and Creativity for Global Impact." This project celebrates Nigeria's rich cultural traditions while fostering global recognition and appreciation for African art, creativity, and innovation. Beyond entertainment, Solate is a dedicated philanthropist, actively supporting emerging artists and underprivileged talents across Africa.

festival | G39 | Nigeria

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Ègbáliganza 2025: Traditional regalia honours of the ancestors

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Emmanuel Solate Emmanuel Solate documents a festival that celebrates the role of Lisabi Agbongbo Akala in freeing the Egba people. The 38th edition of the Lisabi Festival was a resounding celebration of history, heritage, and the creative evolution of the Egba people.

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Righting the record: Sancintya Mohini Simpson

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Righting the record: Sancintya Mohini Simpson

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Righting the record: Sancintya Mohini Simpson | Garland Magazine

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Onespace, Bouquet Street, South Brisbane QLD

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Niloufar Lovegrove ✿ Hands full of wisdom

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Niloufar Lovegrove ✿ Hands full of wisdom

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Niloufar Lovegrove ✿ Hands full of wisdom | Garland Magazine

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The art of Bahi Khata: India’s handwritten legacy of accounts and ancestry

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The art of Bahi Khata: India’s handwritten legacy of accounts and ancestry | Garland Magazine

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Pashmina: An ancestral legacy in the machine age

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Pashmina: An ancestral legacy in the machine age

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Fiba Arif and Irfan Ahmad

Fiba Arif and Irfan Ahmad argue that introducing mechanical looms is important to keeping the tradition of pashmina shawls accessible and alive.

(A message to the reader.)

Pashmina shawls have been draping the shoulders of royalty and fashionistas alike for centuries. Originating from the fine undercoat of the Changthangi goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) of Ladakh, India, these luxurious shawls are a testament to Kashmir's artisanal heritage, manifesting the subtle balance between nature and craftsmanship. The artistry of weaving pashmina by hand is not merely a process of creating a product but of keeping alive a legacy handed down through generations. The name "pashmina" itself conjures a vision of elegance and sophistication, a cloth which has been highly prized since at least 3000 B.C. Even within the epic accounts of the Mahabharata, pashmina was the cloth of the privileged, securing its well-deserved place as the " fibre for Kings ". This heritage stands today not just in thread and wool, but in the memory of 28 artisans draped in white shrouds of crimson red during "Zaldagar agitation" of April 29, 1865, in Srinagar, Kashmir, against the tyrant Dogras.

The " Zaldagar agitation " is considered a significant event in the history of Kashmir and South Asia. It was a protest by Shawlbafs (Kashmiri shawl weavers) against high taxes and exploitative working conditions levied by the Dogra rulers. The protest, which began peacefully, resulted in a brutal crackdown by the Dogra army, leading to the deaths of 28 weavers and injuries to many others. This event is often seen as a pivotal moment in Kashmir's resistance against oppression and is considered the first indigenous political movement of modern South Asia. Hence, it would be a disservice to the truth and to the memory of those who suffered to delve into the article without first recognising the profound sacrifices made by the Kashmiri shawl weavers.

Origin of Pashmina

The art of weaving pashmina shawls has a rich history in Kashmir, although the exact origins remain shrouded in mystery. Some historians trace the craft back thousands of years, while others suggest a more recent inception. While Zain-ul-Abidin institutionalised and expanded Pashmina weaving in the fifteenth century, it was Syed Mir Ali Hamdani in the 14th century who first introduced the craft and the concept to Kashmir, making him the pioneer of Pashmina weaving in the region. The artisans from Persia and Central Asia not only brought weaving techniques but also taught local Kashmiris to spin and weave this delicate wool into luxurious shawls. This laid the foundation of the Pashmina craft tradition in the region, turning it into a culturally rich and economically significant activity.

This exquisite material is derived from the undercoat of a special breed of goats that thrive in the harsh climates of high-altitude regions, particularly in Tibet, Mongolia, and India. These resilient goats develop a fine, downy undercoat to withstand the biting cold of winter, resulting in the creation of pashmina. In India, the Changthang region of Ladakh is the primary source of this coveted fibre. Nestled at elevations between 4,000 and 4,500 meters, this high-altitude cold desert is home to the Changpa nomads, who have perfected the art of pashmina collection. During the summer months, when the goats no longer require their thick winter coats, the Changpas gently comb the goats to gather the precious pashmina. This raw material, a blend of fine pashmina and coarser goat hair, undergoes a meticulous transformation before it can be woven into the stunning shawls and stoles that are so highly sought after.

The process of making Pashmina

The journey of pashmina from goat to garment is a fascinating process. Initially, the raw fibre is cleaned and separated from the coarser hair through a method known as de-hairing. While this task was once performed by skilled artisans, modern technology has introduced machines that streamline the process. Once cleaned, the pashmina is carded and spun into fine yarn. Historically, this spinning was a labour of love done by hand, but today, many artisans utilise spinning mills to enhance production and to meet the demand. The yarn is then dyed in a spectrum of colours, ready to be woven into beautiful pashmina products.

Kani Pashmina shawls are woven using a unique twill-tapestry technique that involves several intricate steps. The process begins with the Naqash, or pattern drawer, who meticulously creates a design on graph paper. This design is then translated into a coded script by the TalimGuru, guiding the weavers on how to interlace the threads. The warp is prepared by a skilled artisan known as nakatu, and the loom is dressed by the pennakamgur. Finally, the shawl is woven from right to left, resulting in a stunning piece of art.

Not so long ago, skilled artisans would spend months weaving these delicate pieces, transforming mere fibres into works of art that could make even the most stoic of hearts swoon. Fast forward to today, and we find ourselves in a world where machines are promising to "give new life to ancestral techniques". These machines can churn out shawls faster than one can utter "pashmina." However, the irony is palpable. As we embrace technology, we risk losing the very essence of what makes pashmina special: the human touch. The whir of machinery lacks the soulful serenade of a weaver's hands. Still, in an era where sustainability is the buzzword du jour, machine-assisted pashmina production emerges as a game-changer, giving artisans a superhero cape by reducing strain, increasing output, and allowing for scalability that hand-weaving simply can't match.

The numbers are as compelling as a well-stitched seam. Industry data reveals that machine weaving can slice production time by a staggering 50%, all while preserving the luxurious texture that has made pashmina synonymous with elegance. A 2022 study found that a whopping 78% of pashmina producers in Kashmir reported a 30% increase in output after welcoming machinery into their workshops, without sacrificing quality.

In a world where luxury often feels out of reach, the advent of mechanisation in pashmina production has opened new doors, allowing this exquisite fabric to be accessible to a broader audience. Once the exclusive domain of the wealthy, pashmina shawls are now within the grasp of many. Credit goes to the innovative technologies that have revolutionised the production process.

Perspectives of industrialists

In the quiet workshops nestled in the heart of Kashmir, one can almost feel the stories unfolding as artisans gently coax the delicate pashmina threads on their looms, sunlight illuminating the intricate designs blossoming beneath their knowing hands - a legacy passed down through generations. To understand how this timeless artistry meets the currents of a changing world and explore more about the advent of mechanisation in this sector, and its impacts, we engaged in conversation with two pashmina business owners who support the fusion of tradition and innovation in pashmina production, albeit in distinct ways.

Our first interviewee, Mr. Peer Zaid, an industrialist in his early thirties with a postgraduate degree, has a profound appreciation for the craft. He runs a workshop that produces machine-made pashmina and wool articles. The walls of his workshop are adorned with exquisite shawls. While discussing the difference between machine-made and handwoven pashmina shawls, he stated,

"While the cost of machine-made shawls is significantly lower than that of handwoven ones, the quality gap is narrowing when good quality machine work is employed".

However, he was quick to clarify that mechanisation has not replaced handwork. "Handwork simply cannot meet the soaring demand driven by materialism," he noted, acknowledging the pressures that modern consumerism places on traditional artisans. The reality is that the exquisite craftsmanship of handwoven pashmina, while unparalleled, cannot keep pace with the increasing global demand. This is where mechanisation steps in-not as a rival, but as a collaborator.

The owner also shared the challenges faced by handwork artisans, who often find themselves ensnared in a web of long credit periods and exorbitant commissions taken by middlemen. Spinning Pashmina and Shahtoosh using a traditional spinning wheel called "Yinder" was once a household affair in Kashmir, primarily the domain of young girls and women, and in the 1990s there were tens of thousands of women involved in the process across Kashmir, "Now many artisans are leaving the industry because the returns on their handwork are simply not sustainable," he lamented.

In contrast, his firm, which exports 90% of its production, has embraced mechanisation as a solution. "It's not about replacing handwork; it's about enhancing it," he emphasised. By integrating technology into the production process, artisans can produce more without sacrificing quality. "Machine work doesn't start where handwork ends; it complements it," he asserted, reinforcing the idea that both methods can thrive together. His workshop utilises a combination of machinery run by skilled persons, utilising the computer software for delicate and fine embroidery, cloning the handwork with great accuracy. As we delved deeper into the conversation, it became clear that the advent of mechanisation has democratized luxury, making it affordable to a broader audience, which has enhanced the market of this workshop manifold.

In contrast, our second interviewee, a passionate artisan, Mr. Mohammad Amin Kumar, working in this sector for 35 years, shared his philosophy on the delicate balance between tradition and modernity in pashmina production. While he utilises machines for the initial spinning of the yarn, he firmly believes that the heart of pashmina lies in the handwork that follows. "Hand embroidery is what defines pashmina," he said, resonating deeply with his clientele, particularly the elite class who appreciate the artistry and uniqueness of handwoven pieces.

The departure of artisans from the spinning industry created a significant gap that catalysed the adoption of spinning machines. The yarn spinning artisans are typically confined to rural areas. As a result, their numbers are significantly decreasing. This is also because their earning is too low. He quoted that a spinning artisan, who spends about 3 months engaging in the work for 4-5 hours per day, earns only around 2000-3000 rupees (or approximately $USD 24) for that work.

Hand spinning contributes around 10% and machine spinning about 90% to the production on his loom. He emphasised that the sales have increased since he introduced yarn spinning machines in his loom. This is because the fast spinning by machine increased production manifold, reduced over-dependence on spinning artisans, and ensured mass production and uniformity in the articles.

However, the machine is confined to spinning only, followed by hand weaving and hand embroidery. The owner shared that his major buyers actively seek out these handcrafted items, often willing to pay a premium for the authenticity and artistry that comes with them. Interestingly, the returns on these hand-embroidered shawls are significantly higher, with a profit margin that reflects the value of the labour and love poured into each piece. With 80% of his sales are localised and the rest international. He is currently happy with the returns.

Hand skills in machine weaving

Machines undoubtedly handle the bulk of the production in pashmina products, such as shawls, stoles, and mufflers, significantly increasing output beyond what hand skills alone could achieve. However, the involvement of artisans, though not extensive in the weaving itself, remains crucial for various stages beyond just weaving. While the mechanical loom handles the rapid production of the fabric, the delicate nature of pashmina wool, even when blended with other fibres (wool, synthetic) to withstand machine stress, still requires specialised hand-finishing.

Artisans are typically involved in preparing the raw pashmina fibres, including meticulous cleaning and sorting to ensure only the finest hairs are used.

Artisans are typically involved in preparing the raw pashmina fibres, including meticulous cleaning and sorting to ensure only the finest hairs are used. After machine weaving, the fabric often undergoes crucial "purz-gari" - a painstaking process where artisans meticulously tweeze, clip, and brush the shawl to remove any loose threads, knots, or imperfections left by the machine. This "purz-gari" is essential for achieving the smooth, refined surface and luxurious feel that pashmina is known for. Furthermore, dyeing the machine-woven pashmina may also be a hand-done process. Skilled dyers use traditional methods and natural pigments to achieve vibrant and even colours, a process that requires a keen eye and extensive experience to ensure consistency and prevent damage to the delicate fibres.

Moreover, even within these mechanised setups, the physical movement of the pashmina at different stages relies on human labour. Workers are consistently involved in transporting the delicate raw pashmina fibres from storage to initial cleaning sections, then moving the processed yarn to the power looms, and finally, shifting the woven fabric to the finishing, dyeing, and inspection areas. Such tasks are predominantly performed by manual labour. In essence, machines enhance production capacity, allowing for broader access to pashmina. At the same time, the involvement of human skill and labour ensures that the essence of quality and craftsmanship is maintained, besides securing livelihoods rather than diminishing them.

How to find authentic pashmina

With the market flooded with imitations, ensuring you're getting an authentic Pashmina shawl requires a discerning eye. True Pashmina, known for its luxurious softness and warmth, is a significant investment, so knowing how to spot the real deal is crucial. The following are reliable methods to help you distinguish genuine Pashmina from counterfeits:
Check for the GI (Geographical Indication) label
For assurance, look for a GI Certified label. This certification guarantees that the Pashmina has been authentically sourced and meticulously crafted in Kashmir, the traditional home of these exquisite shawls.
Inspect the weave
If you want exclusive hand-loomed Pashmina shawls, their weave will show slight irregularities. Look closely; a perfectly uniform pattern often indicates a machine-made shawl.
The ring test
Genuine Pashmina yarn is incredibly fine. A classic test involves gently pulling the shawl through a small ring. A pure Pashmina shawl, due to its exceptional fineness, should pass through with ease. If it snags or doesn't pass through, it's likely not pure. Machine-made Pashmina cannot be differentiated by this method, and this method also has a limitation, as mechanised products mimic authentic pashmina, often mixed with wool and other synthetic products, are woven and softened to a level that can pass the ring test.
The burn test
Authentic Pashmina is made from natural fibres. When a small thread is burned, it should produce a smell similar to burning hair and turn into a powdery ash. Counterfeit shawls, often made from synthetic materials, will smell like burning plastic and likely melt into a rigid bead.
Feel the texture
The defining characteristic of real Pashmina is its incredible softness. It should feel plush and smooth against your skin, never scratchy or coarse. This feel can be discerned by experienced hands.
Microscopy and fibre test
The test is done at certified Pashmina centres, where microscopically the fibre is tested.

In conclusion, the journey of pashmina shawls from handwoven masterpieces to machine-assisted creations reflects a broader narrative of adaptation and resilience. Machinery is not the villain in the age-old battle between tradition and modernity. Instead, it's more of a sidekick, ready to assist rather than overshadow. While the essence of these shawls remains rooted in tradition, the infusion of mechanisation has the potential to elevate the sector. By embracing technology, we are allowing the stories woven into each shawl to reach new hearts and homes. We honour the craftsmanship of the artisans while also welcoming the innovations that can breathe new life into this cherished art form. By this means, the legacy of pashmina will continue to flourish for the generations to come, bridging the gap between the old and the new, and the timeless beauty of this remarkable textile will remain preserved!

About Fiba Arif and Irfan Ahmad

Ms Fiba Arif, a graduate student at the Faculty of Fisheries, SKUAST- Kashmir, has a deep passion for writing. I believe in the power of language and its ability to connect, inform and inspire. I enjoy writing fiction that captures thoughts and imagination in words, using ideas that connect people and tell the story of deaf-mutes.

Dr Irfan Ahmad is a professor at the Faculty of Fisheries, SKUAST-Kashmir, India. I hail from the breathtaking valley of Kashmir, a land rich in beauty and culture. As a passionate photographer, I strive to capture and preserve the authentic essence of Kashmiri life. It was in our minds that we would write for the Pashmina fabric industry in two dimensions, handwork and machine work. The subsequent write-up will be about "from luxurious shawls to modern fashion - tracing the versatility of Pashmina, while examining the ethical and legal backdrop that led to Shahtoosh - King of wools being outlawed."

G39 | India | Kashmir | weaving

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Pashmina: An ancestral legacy in the machine age

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Fiba Arif and Irfan Ahmad Fiba Arif and Irfan Ahmad argue that introducing mechanical looms is important to keeping the tradition of pashmina shawls accessible and alive. (A message to the reader.) Pashmina shawls have been draping the shoulders of royalty and fashionistas alike for centuries.

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Stitching memory: How Siddi women in India preserve memory through quilting

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Stitching memory: How Siddi women in India preserve memory through quilting

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Khanya Mthethwa

In her exhibition honouring leaders across ten South African cultural groups, Khanya Mthethwa represents ancestors of the Xhosa, BaPedi and Zulu peoples through embroidered portraits and personal adornment.

"Abantu: Threads That Bind Us" is my personal celebration of South Africa's diverse indigenous cultures, an intimate exploration of identity, and a tribute to the resilience of cultural memory. In this solo exhibition, I bridge the distance between the past and the present through artistic interpretations of archival materials and contemporary design, inviting you to reconnect with histories that remain alive in spirit yet often overlooked.

The exhibition unfolds across two levels. On the lower ground level, The Archive, I honour the richness of ancestral knowledge and craftsmanship. Featuring archival beadwork loaned from Wits Arts Museum and embroidered portraits of kings and cultural leaders, this space offers a reverent encounter with the legacies that have shaped South Africa's indigenous identities. Here, history is not static; it is a conversation that continues to unfold.

From art jewellery and vases to re-staged photographic portraits of traditional attire, each piece speaks to the transformative power of remembering and reinterpreting. These works celebrate how the past lives on in the present, not as mere relics but as active agents of inspiration and identity. Through this exhibition, I seek to provide a space where those disconnected from their lineage can rediscover and celebrate it. "Abantu: Threads That Bind Us" invites you to consider how heritage shapes who we are and to celebrate the enduring threads of belonging that connect us all.

King Hintsa kaKhawuta (AmaXhosa)

Hintsa represents the violence and betrayal of colonial conquest. His murder during peace talks with British forces, and the unresolved history around the fate of his remains, stands as a powerful symbol of resistance and injustice. His legacy continues to speak to the trauma and dignity of the Xhosa people.

The portrait was created on cotton twill with image transfer, and then layered with canvas, natural springbok hide, blue and pink beads, watercolour paint, and charcoal. These materials evoke both regality and rupture, honouring his story with both tenderness and weight.

King Sekhukhune I (BaPedi)

Sekhukhune led the Bapedi in fierce resistance against both Boer and British forces, defending his kingdom's independence from multiple colonial powers. His construction of the Thaba Sekhukhune fortress symbolised not only strategic brilliance but also the resolve to retain cultural and territorial sovereignty.

This textile combines springbok hide, cotton twill, image transfer, glass beads, watercolour paint, and charcoal. The use of hide symbolises the rugged terrain of resistance and leadership tied to land and protection.

King Shaka kaSenzangakhona (AmaZulu)

Shaka's legacy is foundational to Zulu identity, yet no authenticated image of him exists. By using a symbolic warrior rather than attempting to visually reconstruct him, the work reflects on how oral memory and symbolic presence carry historical weight beyond visual likeness.

This work uses cotton twill with image transfer, beads, embroidery thread, and watercolour. The textures layer memory, power, and myth - deliberately echoing the complexity of remembering Shaka without an image.
Khanya Mthethwa, Abantu - Threads That Bind Us, University of Johannesburg FADA Gallery, 6 March - 28 March 2025
About Khanya Mthethwa

Khanya Mthethwa is a multi-award-winning jewellery designer born in KwaZulu-Natal, currently working as an academic at the University of Johannesburg. She holds a Master of Arts in Design, as well as certifications in Rough Diamond Evaluation and Diamond Cutting. She has submitted a PhD in Art History at the University of Johannesburg's Department of Visual Art, with a focus on indigenous knowledge research methods, the coloniality of culture, and a decolonial stance. Her doctoral work is theoretical and rooted in critical cultural analysis. A jeweller by profession, Khanya is the founder and CEO of Changing Facets, a company that creates contemporary, wearable art jewellery. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Susan Beech Mid-Career Artist Grant, which enabled her to create Abantu: Threads That Bind Us. Her work has been exhibited in Croatia, Italy, Athens, Munich, and Estonia. Follow @ changingfacets.

embroidery | G39 | Khanya Mthethwa | South Africa

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Khanya Mthethwa In her exhibition honouring leaders across ten South African cultural groups, Khanya Mthethwa represents ancestors of the Xhosa, BaPedi and Zulu peoples through embroidered portraits and personal adornment. "Abantu: Threads That Bind Us" is my personal celebration of South Africa's diverse indigenous cultures, an intimate exploration of identity, and a tribute to the resilience of cultural memory.

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Verweban: A textile homage to the “somebodies” in textile factories

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Verweban: A textile homage to the “somebodies” in textile factories

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Verweban: A textile homage to the “somebodies” in textile factories | Garland Magazine

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Kevin Murray

Laurie Paine draws a thread from Palestinian ancestors to a new life on the other side of the world, where she now mourns the tragedy in her homeland.

Laurie Paine translates the traditional designs of tatreez embroidery from Palestine into woven forms. These designs were absorbed from the many traditional embroideries surrounding her childhood home in Australia. For around 40 years, she has maintained a weaving practice, despite the relative lack of recognition. For her, weaving is the expression of her commitment to social justice, especially for those suffering in the war in Gaza.

I visited her studio in Hurstbridge. The 90-minute train ride from Melbourne wove through dense bushland, startling rabbits who darted into their burrows. Laurie lives with her husband and children on a rise overlooking rolling hills. Over tea, she begins her story with her grandfather, Gordon Boutagy, who had an electrical goods business in Jerusalem, selling His Master's Voice. His wife, Laurie's grandmother, raised four children in a middle-class Christian household. This was all upended in 1948.

✿

On 9 April 1948, a massacre took place in the village of Deir Yassin, as a warning to the Palestinians. Loudspeakers were saying that they were coming. My grandfather said, "You have to go. It's very dangerous." So my grandmother took her two younger children in the car across the desert to Egypt. They were shot at along the way. Luckily, they escaped with their lives. They took nothing but literally the clothes on their back.

My grandfather stayed behind with the other men and went to the Old City in an attempt to hold it against the invasion. But they had old rifles and were not trained. He was a lay preacher in the Anglican Church and a Boy Scout, so he was not a fighting man. They lost eventually, and my grandfather was captured by Zionists.

He was told, "You can stay here in prison, or you can go, but if you go, you have to sign here, and you can never come back." Obviously, his wife and children were all in Egypt. So, what could he do? He signed the paper, and they then dumped him over the border into Lebanon. He was stuck in Lebanon for a year before getting to Egypt. It was impossible, and nobody had papers. They'd lost everything. When he finally got over to my grandmother and the family, he said, "If this is the way they're going to treat us. Let's go!"

My great-uncle, who had a hotel in Haifa, had already migrated to Australia and invited my grandfather. It was the white Australia policy at that time, so they couldn't come as Arabs. They had to prove that they had some blood other than Arab. European relatives had to be found, or as my mother used to say, "European blood". They were helped by the Anglican church, of which my grandfather was a lay preacher.

They arrived in Sydney on Australia Day, 1950. My mother was 15 years old and eventually married a man from Queensland. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was conscious that I had a Palestinian family background, but it wasn't spoken about outside the home. Nobody knew about Palestine.

The home was filled with cushions embroidered with Palestinian designs, and when my grandparents visited, they spoke Arabic.

At school, I loved art. A high school teacher got me started on making a tapestry using card weaving. This involves cardboard cards with four holes. You thread through the holes, then put a weft across, and turn the cards to create a pattern. It ended up in the Tops Arts exhibition.

I went overseas for a couple of years and shared a flat with a Ghanaian woman who was trained as a weaver. She had a little table loom set up and I played with it. I became interested in weaving, and I travelled to Ghana.

When I returned to Sydney, I enrolled in art school and studied graphics. A drawing teacher advised me to study at the Canberra Art School, which was taught along Bauhaus lines, with Udo Selbach as head of school. I chose the textile workshop with Michael Butler, who trained at the Royal College of Art. While there, I learnt all the different weaving structures, including twills, houndstooth, waffle, crepe, double cloth and piqué. We were encouraged to experiment with yarns and weave drafts. I discovered that I could make patterns, like little triangles.

While in art school, the curator Jeni Allenby saw my work and identified it as Palestinian. I hadn't told anyone about my identity. She invited me to include my textiles in an exhibition of Palestinian artefacts at the Drill Hall Gallery.

After graduation, I travelled to Central America, including Cuba, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. We were interested in the Nicaraguan revolution. After that, I visited family in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Jordan. I crossed the Allenby Bridge from Amman to the West Bank to visit family in East Jerusalem. As my name was Laurie Paine, and I looked like a white Australian, there was no problem with my going across.

This was in 1986 at the birth of the Intifada movement. A student at Bir Zeit University had been killed by Israelis. I smuggled photos of his funeral back to Amman. While there, I couldn't help but observe that my Palestinian relatives were treated as second-class citizens in their own country.

After returning to Australia, I worked with Elena Gallegos in Tasmania on banners for the Tasmanian Teachers Federation and the Electrical Trades Union.

With young children in tow, I then moved to Mittagong at Sturt when I got my dobby loom. Elizabeth Nagel was the master weaver at the time. That's where I wove my black and white pieces.

I don't have patterns. I just make them up. That's something I learnt in Guatemala. I saw that the older geometric patterns had evolved into something more flowery. It's a living thing. Of course, there will be standard patterns, such as those on the cushions around me. But it's an evolving thing.

Recently, I wanted to do something in response to Gaza. I'd written letters to politicians. I'd tried to talk about it in demonstrations and with friends, but I felt like I was getting nowhere. Perhaps I could try communicating in a different format. So, I wove these as shrouds using the colours of the Palestinian flag.

About Laurie Paine

G39 | Melbourne | Palestine | weaving

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Kevin Murray Laurie Paine draws a thread from Palestinian ancestors to a new life on the other side of the world, where she now mourns the tragedy in her homeland. Laurie Paine translates the traditional designs of tatreez embroidery from Palestine into woven forms. These designs were absorbed from the many traditional embroideries surrounding her childhood home in Australia.

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Palestine Charity Team, Palestine charity office, Rafah

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Three dresses rescued from Rafah: Palestinian culture hangs by a thread

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Three dresses rescued from Rafah: Palestinian culture hangs by a thread

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Three dresses rescued from Rafah: Palestinian culture hangs by a thread | Garland Magazine

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Interweaving the archive: A homage to brave women

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Interweaving the archive: A homage to brave women

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Interweaving the archive: A homage to brave women | Garland Magazine

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Rua Rio Bijogó - Cidade Nova, Manaus - State of Amazonas, Brazil

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Master Edson ✿ Creatures of the river and guardians of the forest

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Master Edson ✿ Creatures of the river and guardians of the forest

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Master Edson Monteiro & Maria Fernanda Paes de Barro

Master Edson Monteiro shares his life as a carpenter living on the Bijogó River whose mythical inhabitants inspire care for nature.

"There are so many stories, so many stories about our region."

I was born and raised here on the banks of the Bijogó River, and I used to walk in the middle of the forest and work. I survive on this, on nature, I have never worked as an employee, with a formal contract, I have always survived on the forest. The forest has sustained me until now. I really like what we do. I like my work. We learn to do a lot of things. We learn a bit of everything. We learn to make our canoes. We learn to build our little houses, to pilot our boats, to work with our engines. We are everything. We are the mechanics of our boats. We hardly ever pay anything. We learn to do things.

I like the riverside life, a peaceful life. We live well, sleep well, wake up feeling good, leave in the morning to work, return in the afternoon, and get caught in the rain in the woods. We hear the Curupira moving in the woods when we are working, usually when we are alone. When we are with a group of people, he doesn't make contact. He may come closer, but he doesn't give any sign. But if there is only one person, the person hears all the movement. What he does is he whistles, he shouts, he makes movements. If you don't have the courage, you will run, but since I was born and a native of the region, I don't run. I can even run from a jaguar or something like that, from what I can see, but from what I can't see, I won't run.

I've been very far away in the forest, just me and God in the forest, really deep. There, I could scream, I could make any movement, and no one would hear anything. That day, the Curupira almost made me run away. I think he got angry. I think it was her area. It was a big tree. Wherever he lives, he cleans. When you see the foot of a big tree in the forest, all clean and swept, it has an owner. There's no point in staying there because she takes care of it. It doesn't take long. If you don't pay attention, you get lost and don't know where you're going. He gets into your mind, and you can't recognise it, even if you're a woodsman. It's happened to me about four times that she made me get lost in the forest.

What do you do when you feel that the Curupira is tormenting you? You take a vine and make a circle. Pull a vine from the bush, make a thin circle, roll it up tightly, hide the end, throw it back and as you throw it, your mind clears. That's what I did, and at that moment, while he was trying to unroll the vine, I was able to locate myself."

Master Edson Monteiro

Master Edson is from Pará, from the island of Murucutum, one of the islands in the Amazon region located in the riverside area of ​​Belém, in the state of Pará, Brazil. He is a carpenter, but as he himself says, he is much more than that. He builds houses, boats and furniture, fishes with nets and hooks, repairs boat engines, and a lot more. What he doesn't know yet, he wants to learn, letting himself be guided by curiosity, and thus, combining tradition and creativity, he turns dreams into reality.

As a riverside dweller, his house is built on stilts, a construction system that allows houses to stand on marshy areas, without being swept away by the river current or flooded during the rainy season. It is there, surrounded by the Amazon rainforest, that Master Edson grew up listening to his father's stories. Grandson of quilombolas, he knew Murucutum Island at a time when there was no electricity and the houses were lit by oil lamps. They were far apart from each other, and travel between them and through the forest was done by canoe or on horseback. Food had to be stored salted so it wouldn't spoil, hanging in paneiros (a type of basket made of straw) in the kitchen. At night, there was endless darkness with the sound of life in the forest, making it possible to see many things in nature.

That was how one night, when he was about 15 years old and was at home with his father and his cousin Ednaldo, who was 17 at the time, he noticed the presence of the Big Snake. A giant snake that lives dormant at the bottom of rivers. Capable of sinking boats, the big snake is so strong that it can even change the course of water. It was already dawn, and nature was following its rhythm until they noticed a strange noise in the waters of the Bijogó river, which had been calm until then. They ran to the balcony to try to see what it was in the darkness. Without a flashlight or other source of light, they could only feel the movement of the Big Snake as it passed by, a gigantic, black figure, very dark, bellowing like a calf, rising against the tide and leaving as proof of its passage strong waves that came crashing against the wooden structure of the houses on the riverbank.

Telling it this way, it seems like something from a distant past, but the truth is that even today, Master Edson, the riverside people of Murucutum Island and several other regions of the Amazon, notice the presence of these enchanted beings, who inhabit the forest.

The episode in which he describes his encounter with the Curupira was recent, about a year and a half ago. It happened on a piece of land he owns, right in the middle of Murucutum Island. Access to his land is difficult; you must go by boat, enter a creek and go deeper into the vast green space. The deeper you go into the forest, the more silence takes over. Not just anyone can be alone in a forest like this; it takes courage and knowledge. But Master Edson is not afraid, he is only afraid of snakes, due to the memory of the unbearable pain of a jararaca snake bite he suffered as a child.

He says that his uncle, who is now quite old, once saw the Curupira when he was cutting down a field. After cutting down a large tree, he sat down at the edge of the field to eat something, around noon. Suddenly, he saw it climbing up the tree that had just cut down. It was like a little boy, a very small black boy who was coming towards him, jumping through the branches of the tree. When he got very close to him, it disappeared without ever entering his mind.

"We are never alone in the forest. There is always something watching you. You can't see it, but there is someone there by your side, all the time." Master Edson.

The Curupira and the Cobra Grande, as well as the Mãe D'Água (Mother of Water), the Boto (a man who turns into a kind of Dolphin fish typical of the rivers of the Amazon rainforest) and the Matinta Pereira (a kind of old witch who haunts the houses in the area at night, at which point she becomes a bird), to name just a few, are entities, "enchanted" beings, guardians of the forest. Formerly treated as folklore, they are much more than legends. Recorded orally by Amazonian communities, their stories have much to teach us about caring for nature. They demand respect and reverence and make us understand that it is necessary to ask permission to enter the forest.

"It's incredible, a truly incredible thing, a forest thing." Master Edson.

Master Edson is one of the carpenters who are part of the Pallas Project, an initiative by Luís Guedes and Pablo do Vale, founding partners of Guá Arquitetura, an architecture and design company based in Belém-PA, which since 2021 has been dedicated to cataloguing and documenting the rich tradition of Amazonian carpentry. I was introduced to the project in May 2024, and in October of the same year, I had the honor of accompanying Pablo and Master Edson on a visit to the city of São Paulo. During this day together, I heard Master Edson tell stories about the "Enchanted". Since 2018, when I visited Pará for the first time, the Enchanted" have crossed my life from time to time, but that is a subject for another story.

Follow @ guaarquitetura. Photography by Jheff Cavalcante @ jpfariax

Brazil | Maria Fernanda Paes de Barros | river | snake | wood

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Master Edson ✿ Creatures of the river and guardians of the forest

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Master Edson Monteiro & Maria Fernanda Paes de Barro Master Edson Monteiro shares his life as a carpenter living on the Bijogó River whose mythical inhabitants inspire care for nature. "There are so many stories, so many stories about our region."

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The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery, Factory Road, Toogoolawah QLD

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Elysha Rei ✿ A fish out of water | Garland Magazine

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Wonder Reef: A fertile art installation for fish and occasional humans

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Wonder Reef: A fertile art installation for fish and occasional humans

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Wonder Reef: A fertile art installation for fish and occasional humans | Garland Magazine

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The flow of spirits: Tales and crafts of Shandur Lake 

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The flow of spirits: Tales and crafts of Shandur Lake 

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The flow of spirits: Tales and crafts of Shandur Lake | Garland Magazine

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Sindh River View Point, Gora, Madhya Pradesh, India

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As the Sindh river flows: Water spirits in Indian culture 

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As the Sindh river flows: Water spirits in Indian culture 

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As the Sindh river flows: Water spirits in Indian culture | Garland Magazine

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A cherished Chinese tooth tradition | Garland Magazine

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Nereides: A homage to our seagrass meadows

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Nereides: A homage to our seagrass meadows

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Nereides: A homage to our seagrass meadows | Garland Magazine

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Love, loss and the sea: The mermaid in Southeast Asia’s Ramayana

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Love, loss and the sea: The mermaid in Southeast Asia’s Ramayana

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Love, loss and the sea: The mermaid in Southeast Asia’s Ramayana | Garland Magazine

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Sea legends in Hong Kong’s waters from mermaids to pirates

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Sea legends in Hong Kong’s waters from mermaids to pirates

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Sea legends in Hong Kong’s waters from mermaids to pirates | Garland Magazine

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The people fished from the sacred Eware river

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The people fished from the sacred Eware river

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The people fished from the sacred Eware river | Garland Magazine

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Ọ̀ṣun Òṣogbo Festival: A sacred cultural tradition thrives in Nigeria today

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Ọ̀ṣun Òṣogbo Festival: A sacred cultural tradition thrives in Nigeria today

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Ọ̀ṣun Òṣogbo Festival: A sacred cultural tradition thrives in Nigeria today | Garland Magazine

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The loom underwater: Weaving the Selkie story

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The loom underwater: Weaving the Selkie story

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The loom underwater: Weaving the Selkie story | Garland Magazine

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Water spirits in the form of serpents: The Ular Naga of Alor and the Phanya Naak of Laos

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Water spirits in the form of serpents: The Ular Naga of Alor and the Phanya Naak of Laos

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https://garlandmag.com/article/ular-naga-of-alor-and-the-phanya-naak-of-laos/

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Water spirits in the form of serpents: The Ular Naga of Alor and the Phanya Naak of Laos

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Water Spirits in the form of serpents occur throughout Southeast Asia, serving as guardian spirits and progenitors of lineages and populaces. Linda McIntosh highlights the Naak or Phanya Naak of Luang Prabang, Laos, and the Ular Naga of Alor Regency, Indonesia.

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A master temple sculptor made terracotta plaques showing the evolution of the Indian Naga into the Aboriginal Rainbow Serpent.

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Naung Daw Gyi Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar (Burma)

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Naung Daw Gyi Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar (Burma)

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Naung Daw Gyi Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar (Burma)

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Soe Yu Nwe

Soe Yu Nwe explains why she is drawn to the snake as inspiration for her work.

(A message to the reader in Burmese.)

(A message to the reader in English.)

✿ Why did you make the Snake Woman?

I created the snake woman to reconfigure the idea of a serpent embedded in the collective mindset that's shaped by the western religion and belief, as the snake that whisper of the voice of evil to Eve to eat the apple. As someone whose Chinese zodiac sign is also a snake, it also holds symbolic meaning for my sense of self. Through my work, I hope to work with this perception of the animal and offer a wider view regarding the beliefs around this animal.

✿ What does it mean to you?

To me, snakes mean healing, transformation, renewal, regeneration and destruction, and ancient wisdom. One example would be the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, self-destroying but also self-healing and self-birthing. Snakes are also a creationist symbol for me, an endlessly creative, maternal energy that gives birth to all the creatures of the world, as in the Chinese creationist goddess Nuwa.

✿ How did you make it?

I made the work by coiling technique with clay during my residency in Shigaraki, an ancient ceramic city in Japan. The color of the work is predominantly green, reminiscent of the latent state of the plant world, something on the verge of growing or transforming into new possibilities.

✿ What presence does the snake where you live?

Snake is a close relative of Naga, a mythical serpentine creature that is closer to a snake than a dragon. In my work, I create both snake and Naga to explore the similarities and differences between the two creatures. In Myanmar, there are a few Snake temples. One of the temples I visited is Baung Daw Gyoke Pagoda in Twente, across the river from Yangon. These temples are also known as Hmwe Phayar meaning Snake Temple. Another temple in Mandalay that I visited has both the snakes and Buddha statues but also Naga Maedaw, meaning Naga Queen inside the temple. I see this as the connection to the guardian of the underworld, water and protector of Buddha, as in one of the Buddhist myths, Naga king Mucalinda emerged from a nearby lake to spread his hood to protect the fasting and meditating Buddha from stormy rain and wind for seven days.

About Soe Yu Nwe

I am an artist from Myanmar, currently based in the ancient ceramic city of Shigaraki, Japan. As an invited guest resident artist at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, I am making work for my exhibitions in Japan and overseas. My most recent exhibitions were at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea and the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Singapore. My upcoming group exhibition will be at Simose Art Museum in April. See also Leeum Museum of Art, DreamScreen and Sundaram Tagore, Disobedient Bodies. Follow @ soeyunwe.

ceramics | G38 | gender | Myanmar | snake

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Naga Mae Daw Serpent: Maternal energy uncoils in Myanmar

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Soe Yu Nwe explains why she is drawn to the snake as inspiration for her work.