Year 10 Soft Self Portraits - West Moreton Anglican College

Every face has a story, every story has a face: Kulila! is a group of embroidered sculptures made by nine women artists – Dulcie Raggett, Dulcie Sharpe, Marlene Rubuntja, Rhonda Sharpe, Rosabella Ryder, Roxanne Petrick, Roxanne Sharpe, Trudy Inkamala and Valerie Stafford, from the Yarrenyty Arltere Art Centre in Alice Springs. Using embroidery thread, wadding, twigs and dyed blankets, the artists at Yarrenyty Arltere manipulate techniques such as weaving, looping and knotting to create these unique figures.

Create a self-portrait collage using soft materials such as recycled textiles, wool or thread.

This exercise is part of a unit called ‘Literacies of Place’. The unit features many First Nations artists due to their strong visual storytelling and communal identity. While exploring past Tarnanthi exhibitions, I presented the AGSA interpretive resource to the students and the class chose the collaged face exercise. Even though the task was designed for primary students, my class thought it looked fun.

The point was to help the class find respect for local resources like the 9 women in the resource. Instead of using recycled textiles from home, I asked the school uniform shop if there was any discarded or second-hand stock we could use. These uniforms were decommissioned, outdated, and headed for the bin, but the class still felt respect towards them. Students felt rebellious cutting in to school socks, ties, shirts, and skirts. Using uniforms got students talking about the materials because as they described it, “it felt illegal” to dismember this important part of school culture. But this meant that students were critically evaluating their art materials and considered what it meant to creatively repurpose an important piece of their collective identity.

Annabel Simmonds | Leader of Learning – Visual Art | West Moreton Anglican College