Textile-inspired fabrications interpreting and supporting women at work in the Illawarra from the 1850s will be on display at Wollongong City Gallery from 7 May.
Flossie Peitsch’s practice features an emphasis on ‘home craft’ as a tribute to women’s productive yet often unheralded labour at home and within industry. The installation pieces in this exhibition also reference the work of immigrant Caroline Chisholm, and are inspired by women’s role in the 1906 Mt Kembla Mining Disaster as the surviving mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters.
Peitsch also draws from the Migration Heritage Projects’ research into the contribution of local women in the textile, clothing and footwear industries from the 1940s until 2009 and a historic collection of beautiful Macedonian Aprons. Also featured is an artistic and performative outcome derived from Peitsch’s 2009 VIVA La Gong project’s questionnaires, A Dwelling Story.
Peitsch says: “A woman’s work is never done. An old axiom perhaps but, never the less, one that holds truth.
“Despite the invention of washing machines, vacuum cleaners, sewing machines, coffee makers and personal computers, women are still even more inventive finding new ways to expand ‘work’,” Peitsch said. “This speaks well of women’s resourcefulness but also decries women’s state of vulnerability. Looking at the history of women at work in the Illawarra since the 1850s and adding my own brief experience in this place, I see a highly textured patchwork of dislocation, loss, and alienation covered with adaptability, diligence, and resilience – cultural transition within a diaspora. My art is an interpretive sampler of women as the fabric of society.”
Work ’n’ Women, a free public forum supported by the Mt Kembla Mining Heritage, will be held on Friday 6 May and Saturday 7 May at Wollongong City Gallery and Project Contemporary Artspace. This broad inquiry into how a society passes on its gender based histories, arts and culture, ethics, mores and belief systems - and the implications of this process seeks to foster awareness, understanding and acceptance between women of disparate communities and dissimilar traditions.
Dr Marianne Hulsbosch, Senior Lecturer Visual Art & Design Education, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney will officially open Sleeves & Sheets, Socks & Pockets on Friday 6 May at 6.30pm . This will be followed by, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, a performance by Dr Janys Hayes and her University of Wollongong Performance Troupe.
For more information on the Wollongong Art Gallery, visit the internet site at www.wollongongcitygallery.com/. You can call the gallery on
(02) 4227 7111.