Event
Adelaide
Robert Wuldi: Weaving the Machine
Adelaide
Event
Paying homage to the Lakun (weaving) of his Great Grandfather Milerum, Robert Wuldi invigorates traditional Ngarrindjeri weaving with new material approaches, transforming salvaged copper wire into objects of lustrous beauty.
When Wuldi began weaving with galvanised wire, it was in reference to how unceded land was divided, fenced and cordoned, preventing his ancestors from accessing the land with which they had thousands of years of intimate connection. Wuldi has reframed wire as a resource for his practice, subverting the wire from a tool of control into an item of culture and beauty. In this exhibition he uses wire from truck alternators, washing machines and the 90-year-old shearers quarters where he lives at Narrung, on Ngarrindjeri territory.
Each work carries culture through form and language, with many referencing his connection to ancestors and family. Works echo the Kuranji basket's woven by Milerum held in the collection of the SA Museum, while his Lakwunami Punawi (woven bag) bears his Mother's name, honoring consistent practice across hundreds of years.
Through Weaving the Machine Wuldi draws our attention to the dynamic between traditional and innovative, pragmatic and sculptural, and between what he calls the 'guts of the colonial machine', and the inherent beauty of the intricate objects he has woven.
This exhibition is presented as part of SALA Festival.
When Wuldi began weaving with galvanised wire, it was in reference to how unceded land was divided, fenced and cordoned, preventing his ancestors from accessing the land with which they had thousands of years of intimate connection. Wuldi has reframed wire as a resource for his practice, subverting the wire from a tool of control into an item of culture and beauty. In this exhibition he uses wire from truck alternators, washing machines and the 90-year-old shearers quarters where he lives at Narrung, on Ngarrindjeri territory.
Each work carries culture through form and language, with many referencing his connection to ancestors and family. Works echo the Kuranji basket's woven by Milerum held in the collection of the SA Museum, while his Lakwunami Punawi (woven bag) bears his Mother's name, honoring consistent practice across hundreds of years.
Through Weaving the Machine Wuldi draws our attention to the dynamic between traditional and innovative, pragmatic and sculptural, and between what he calls the 'guts of the colonial machine', and the inherent beauty of the intricate objects he has woven.
This exhibition is presented as part of SALA Festival.
