How do you help stop six tonnes of textile waste going to landfill in Australia each year? Reuse or Redesign it.
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Throughout the school holidays, the team from ‘a Fitting Connection’ will inspire children and the community to reuse and redesign their unwanted textile.
It will facilitate a series of free upcycling workshops at the Benalla Art Gallery and a clothing swap at Benalla’s CWA Hall that locals can participate in.
The art workshops will form part of the gallery’s regular School Holiday Program which will run across the two-week holiday period.
Katrina Naish, founder of ‘a Fitting Connection’, has worked in the fashion industry for more than 20 years.
In 2021 she pivoted her business ‘a Fitting Connection’ to focus on sustainability, after becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the fashion industry’s role as a major polluter.
“I never felt comfortable with the amount of waste being created when clothes are manufactured, and when they are discarded,” Ms Naish said.
“In Australia 23 kilograms of textile waste is going to landfill for every person, every year.
“I find this absolutely shocking and have decided to use my industry knowledge to help change this.”
Together with her colleague Simone, Katrina will visit Benalla on Wednesday, June 28, and 29.
The purpose of these events is to engage and educate the community about purposeful textile ownership and disposal, while also learning some art skills along the way.
“This will be the first school holidays where we have more workshops booked in country Victoria, than we do within the Melbourne city limits,” Ms Naish said
Benalla Art Gallery director Eric Nash said it was an important conversation to be had, especially with our young people.
“As artists and arts practitioners, we need to be working in a sustainable way for the future and developing opportunities for young people to engage in this discussion,” Mr Nash said.
“I am excited that the gallery can support this and welcome artists and organisations working in this space to the Gallery to share their knowledge with our community.”
The Benalla Art Gallery School Holiday Program features other sustainability focused workshops including Creative Creatures with Artist Liz Walker and a weaving workshop for youth presented by Ghost Net Collective Artist, Marion Gaemers.
School holiday programs:
• TeeRemade: a Fitting Connection (Ages 5-12) — Wednesday, June 28, from 10.30am-12.30pm. Cost: Free;
Don’t throw that raggedy old T-shirt away. Repurpose it. In this hands-on workshop, the team from ‘a Fitting Connection’ will show you how to turn your worn-out T-shirts into fabulous new items, such as tote bags. Great to use as a sports bag, swimming bag or as a special home-made gift.
• Meet and Weave: Ray Brooches with Marion Gaemers (Ages 15+) — Wednesday, June 28, from 2pm-4pm. Cost: Free;
Leading up to the launch of Interwoven: Stories of Country from North and South, join Benalla Art Gallery for a social, drop-in session where you will meet visiting artist Marion Gaemers of Ghost Net Collective. Enjoy a conversation with Marion about her collaborative practice, touch and feel ghost net artworks, or get more hands-on by creating your own ghost net ray brooch to wear along to the exhibition launch.
• Block printing: a Fitting Connection (Ages 8-15) — Thursday, June 29, from 10.3am-12.30pm. Cost: Free;
Got an old piece of clothing or pillowcase in need of a refresh? Block printing is a tactile printing technique that allows you to quickly embellish and personalise garments; giving new life to old things and keeping clothes in use longer by covering stains. You can even upcycle old fabrics to make something new like gift wrap.
• Creative Creatures: Liz Walker (Ages 5-12) — Wednesday, July 5 from 10.30am-12.30pm. Cost: $25 members/$30 non-members;
The native creatures we share the world with are all different — some are big, and some are small, some are spikey, and some are smooth, some are brown and some are not. Create your own unique creature out of natural materials, recyclable plastics, and other useful things on pre-cut recycled cardboard templates, or simply design your own with the assistance of artist Liz Walker.
• Shadow Scapes (Ages 5-15) — Thursday, July 6 from 10.30am-12.30pm. Cost: $15 members/$20 non-members;
Inspired by Sally Smart’s shadow or silhouette artworks exhibited in the Bennett Bequest Exhibition in the Ledger Gallery, this drawing activity will encourage participants to consider negative and positive space, transforming real and imagined landscapes into stylistic shadow artworks. Participants are encouraged to bring in pictures and images of their home or places they like to visit, turning these into their shadow landscapes. Using pastels, watercolours and markers, participants will sketch, create and imagine a backdrop for their silhouette — this could be abstract or real life.
• Little Artists: Shadows, Drawings, Dress-Ups (Pre-school children and their parents/guardians) — Friday, July 7, from 10am-10.45am. Cost: Free.
Play and explore the gallery collection, and of course make some ART. The Bennett Bequest, currently on display in the Ledger Gallery, features some exciting works from the collection of both contemporary and historic significance. For our little ones, there are some playful and imaginative artworks that allow us to explore our creativity using both places we know and imagine, as well as making pictures with our bodies. In this session of Little Artists, we will draw our attention to artworks by Sally Smart to make shadow sketches and play with real lights and props to create shadow scenes using our body. In response to Polixeni Papapetrou’s playful portraits, we will have fun dressing up as different ‘subjects’ to create photo portraits with help from our parents/carers.
Registration and payment is essential as numbers are strictly limited for all programs. Reserve your spot by calling 5760 2619 or via gallery@benalla.vic.gov.au
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