Truganina Community Centre

Truganina Community Centre features public art in both internal and external spaces. These are Convergence by Lisa Waup, an integrated public art perforated on the facade of the building, Weaving Kinships by Katie West, a body of textile prints in the internal hallway, and Woven Together by Georgia MacGuire, a 3D artwork on a garden bed in front of the book return boxes.

Lisa Waup 

Lisa Waup is a mixed-cultural First Peoples multidisciplinary artist and curator born in Narrm (Melbourne). Waup's practice spans diverse media, including weaving, printmaking, photography, sculpture, fashion and digital art. Through strong connections to symbology and materiality, her work connects her to family, Country, history and story, exploring personal experiences and a broader historical narrative. Her work eloquently illustrates her life’s journey through discovery and connection, highlighting the importance of tracing lost history, ancestral relationships, Country, motherhood, and time, which ultimately are woven into stories of her past, present and future into contemporary forms.

Artist Statement: 

Convergence

Convergence symbolises crossroads, pathways of connection and coming together to form a new whole.  In my practice, I don't see crossroads as a negative thing, but rather a place to see where you're going and where you've come from. Crossroads are a way to celebrate where you've been, what we're doing and what we hope to do in the future. Today, we often don't take time to rejoice and acknowledge our experiences as individuals and as a community. The work speaks to the idea that there's strength in numbers; we're stronger together and reflects on how coming together and sharing, our community flourishes. One is not stronger than the other; in bringing together the strengths of both, there is a balance. 

Katie West

Katie West is an artist and Yindjibarndi woman based in Noongar Ballardong country, working in installation, textiles and social practice. The process and notion of naturally dyeing fabric underpin her practice –the rhythm of walking, gathering, bundling, boiling up water and infusing materials with plant matter. Katie has presented solo exhibitions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville and West Space, Melbourne for Next Wave Festival 2016, and participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne and Shimmer, Rotterdam.

Artist Statement: 

Weaving Kinships

Floating above the main corridor is the artwork Weaving Kinships, a series of ten textile pieces. Each piece depicts a basket form and riffs off a basket currently kept in a museum collection identified as an example of Yindjibarndi weaving practice. In the museum context, this basket is just one example of countless baskets made by hundreds of generations of women. In Weaving Kinships, each basket is collaged from fabrics of varied colours and textures to convey unique personalities and point to the breadth and depth of variation brought to each basket by the hands of its maker. 

Georgia MacGuire 

Georgia MacGuire is a contemporary First Nations artist based in the Central Goldfields, Victoria. She has been a practicing artist since 2000 and completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Arts) from Deakin University, Melbourne in 2004. Since completing her studies, she relocated to a rural environment in the Central Goldfields. She is drawn to materials that reconnect her to traditional craft practices and is known for her unique use of paper bark. Her work has been selected for several awards including the CAL Victorian Indigenous Art Award for three-dimensional works and the People’s Choice prize. She has also been a finalist in the National Telstra Indigenous Art Awards and recently won the Koorie Art People’s Choice Award.

Artist Statement:

Woven Together

Woven Together is a recognition of the origins of the coil weaving technique in Victoria. The practice of weaving is cross-cultural and ancient, with many civilisations having weaving traditions that are thousands of years old. Coil weaving is a widely used and taught technique in the creation of traditional and contemporary objects by First Nations people, including baskets, mats, and eel traps. This work is a call to encourage the diverse cultural communities in Truganina to come together through cross-cultural exchange and shared creativity. This work centres First Nations cultural knowledge and is an invitation to others to share and connect through craft.