Liminal Indigo, 2017, in House Conspiracy, West End, Brisbane. Images by Perception Productions.
During a four-week House Conspiracy Artist Residency in 2017, I developed an immersive installation foregrounding consumption and waste within the framework of a ‘walk-in painting’. Salvaged clothes and household items were deconstructed and joined together, forming drapes. The thrift-shop items chosen were damaged or threadbare, deemed unsuitable for sale (in the ‘free’ baskets), so these are materials that would be otherwise destined for rubbish and ultimately, landfill. Interested in how the work could articulate space, the painting concept of atmospheric perspective was employed to re-interpret a landscape through layering folds of the natural indigo-dyed textiles.
Australians buy an average of 27kg of textiles (apparel and household) each year and also discard 23kg into landfill, it is the second largest contributor to landfill after food waste. Additionally, the three trillion dollar global apparel industry rates second only to oil in a list of the worlds largest industrial polluters.
