Place Makers includes the work of eight artists who use textiles to investigate history, self, place and identity. Each artist identifies with a unique cultural heritage; their use of textiles serves as an anchor point for their personal histories and their contextualisation within the broader Australian milieu.

These artists use textiles to tell their stories; cloth and fibre are part of our collective consciousness, having boundless use in ritual, celebration, decoration and the everyday. Used as a mode of storytelling, these artists use textiles to communicate memories and histories as well as a connection to place and the communities that exist there.

Textile techniques such as tapestry weaving; knotting, coiled weaving and embroidery are employed within a contemporary lens, while maintaining links to the traditional practices that they are drawn from.

Ideas around place become the common thread between these diverse practices, each artist active in the ownership and contemporary perpetuation of their traditional textile histories. Place Makers explores the complications around notions of home for diaspora and First Nations people and the complexities of communicating this to the world: establishing yourself in a new place, or defining yourself on country.

Artists: Kay Lawrence AM, Paula do Prado, Yunuen Pérez, Mu Naw Poe, Bronwyn Razem, Ema Shin, Muhubo Suleiman, Lisa Waup

Place Makers is proudly supported by the City of Port Phillip.