TAKE UP SPACE:

BUT WHERE IS YOUR FAMILY FROM?

In this project I will explore migration and family histories, and the impact of migration on our identity. My vision is to contribute to and open up conversations on the impact of migration on collective and personal identity. I will use my family history of migration to Australia from Scotland and Italy, (1930s - 1950s) and how this relates to present day conversations.

Above: 'Fit in At all Costs'. Found imagery on canvas with digital shape and text, and gelati coloured fringing.

Fitting in and adapting certain parts of yourself are all part of life in a new country. At this, I recall a black and white photograph of my teenage dad dressed smartly in a suit. He looked like him but something was different - he had tried to dye his hair blonde to look like ‘more Aussie’ - to fit in. He had used peroxide, bought from the local chemist and his black hair did not go a shade of sun-kissed blonde. It had turned bright orange. He had to wait for it to grow out. Ironically this would have been the opposite of blending in and fitting in.

Rose Tinted, 2023. Inspired by family photograph (artist's mother) and made with digital printing on canvas with fuse-bead tassel fringing. Size: approx 80cm x 80cm.

Source imagery: Pellegrino family photograph. My mother who moved to Australia at the age on 9 years old as what was known as a £10 Pom. Her family paid £10 for passage on a 6 week ship journey to Australia. Once arrived they first stayed in tin semi circular huts before living with a sponsor and then eventually getting their own home in suburban South Australia.

Work in progress: screenprinting enlarged family photographs on to cotton. These large cotton strips (100cm x 30cm) will be sewn into ring shapes and stuffed, forming links of a large-scale soft sculpture chain, titled 'Family Chain'.

Work in progress: the pallette and the planning.

Source imagery: Pellegrino family photograph (Nonno). Nonno owned a fruit stall at the Melbourne Victoria Markets. Francesco was a prominent person in the Italian community who was instrumental in helping other Italians migrate to Australia.

Work in progress: screenprinting to form a soft sculpture of links for her piece, 'Family Chain'.

'The Family Chain' (work in progress). Screenprinted family photographs and text from family conversations sewn into soft links that will make up a 6.5m chain.

Close up: a link from 'The Family Chain' soft sculpture.

Close up: cotton with screenprinted family photograph and text from family conversation. This will then be sewn into a link for 'The Family Chain' sculpture.

Source imagery: Pellegrino family photograph (Nonna). Nonna was a talented seamstress, beautiful singer and extraordinary cook.

Work in progress, wearable art: screenprinting repeat tile pattern. This fabric will form the basis of a dress handmade by the artist, to match her mother's dress in the printed photo.

Source imagery: Pellegrino family photograph (mother).

Source imagery: Pellegrino family photograph (father).

Source imagery: family photograph (my mother and her family on the 6 week ship journey to Australia).

Sauce Day, 2023. Hand built ceramic bottle. Inspired by the Italian tradition of sauce making, where the Italian community come together to make their passata for the year. Sauce Day is a beautiful family tradition that at the time, to me, was a hugely uncomfortable chore was very un-Australian.

A work-in-progress soft sculpture, 'That Termite Hill Tells A Story' inspired by family memories and storytelling, and by a family trip to Darwin, Australia where the roads were lined with almost other-worldy looking human-sized termite mounds. Sometimes passersby would dress these termite mounds in t-shirts. It was a surreal sight, especially with the beautiful moon-like backdrop of the North Territory landscape. Attached to the red earth termite hill hill sculpture are shreds of screenprinted and hand beaded family photographs.

Work in progress: termite hill-inspired soft sculpture made from chain stitches. Tied to the sculpture are shreds of screenprinted family photos with hand beading. Photographed at 30cm in height and will be 1 metre tall.

Handbuilt and hand decorated ceramic plates with stories from the artist's family on their immigration experiences.

A video piece made in Venice. The laundry - somehow reminiscent of table cloths and bedsheets that used to hang on my own Nonna’s washing line in Australia. It is a million miles away from my Nonna’s back garden and there is no Hills Hoist clothes line. But the same feeling is there. The wind combined with audio of my late Nonna singing, animates the hanging bed linen giving it a human quality as it sings out its stories to those here and absent.

‘THE FAMILY CHAIN’ PROJECT PROCESS:

In the studio, sewing my screen printed family photographs to create a soft sculpture of links, in a piece titled ‘The Family Chain’. The end result will be large scale chain that snakes across the exhibition space, connecting other pieces from the project together and forcing observers to interact with and negotiate their way around the sculpture.

‘THE FAMILY CHAIN’ Project process:

One of the links part of the soft sculpture, ‘The Family Chain’.

‘that termite hill tells a story’ Project process:

Creating my termite hill-like sculptures from chain stitching red textiles for the piece, ‘That Termite Hill Tells A Story’.