Nien Schwarz traces the journey of a craft collective that becomes entangled in the non-human.

underFOOT is a collective of artists from Western Australia and Tasmania who share a special companionship. Holly Story, Perdita Phillips, Annette Nykiel, Sharyn Egan, Jane Donlin, Nandi Chinna and myself, Nien Schwarz, are multidisciplinary makers who care deeply about Nature and our connection to Country. Most of us first exhibited together in 2016. We have since become friends. Our current exhibition, Mélange, at Mundaring Arts Centre, is part of the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial (IOTA24).

Mélange is a geological term for tectonically jumbled rocks fused together to form new landscapes of complexity: diverse geological materials, shapes, patterns, textures and colours. In textiles, Mélange refers to yarns with more than one colour, resulting in fabrics with vibrant abstract qualities.

Mélange aptly describes underFOOT’s mix of immigrant, Indigenous and settler Australians. We hold diverse degrees, in the visual arts and crafts, creative writing, geology, environmental science, food science and Indigenous Australian Cultural Research. We harness our respective areas of academic expertise to engage in interdisciplinary and collaborative projects.

Most importantly we enjoy amazing conversations, especially around home-cooked meals. These conversations have built trust and goodwill, fuel our imaginations and making, and sustain the group as we loop in and out of contact.

Not anticipating the longevity of a core group of artists exhibiting on and off for nine years, earlier versions of underFOOT include preparation for the exhibitions field walking slow making (2015-2016) and We must get together some time (2019-2021). The artists involved have varied from three to eleven.

We work differently from most artist groups; underFOOT, underpins what we do. For context, I’m sharing parts of a letter I wrote in 2022 inviting artists to join me with the following intent:

• under + foot suggests engaged walking – participating in and feeling textures, terrain and topography, using our energy, our bodies, to negotiate Earth’s varied skins.
• Underfoot, like burrs and gravel, can also agitate, agitate against the grain, against complacency, stock answers and received truths.
• Underfoot is the name for a new group of compelling contemporary makers.

Because our focus is on what is underfoot we practice long-term engagement with non-urban, non-human worlds. We thrive on sharing mutual interests in deep time, stratigraphy, and biota. underFOOT is a nexus through which we share field-based experiences.

Our stories with the non-human are entangled: walked, written, narrated, sung, recorded and performed. The underFOOT film brings non-human presence into the gallery, inviting a multisensory sojourn, a tuning into the greater web of life, and shows why artmaking is important.

We adapt ancient craft traditions, believing in craft’s relevance in the contemporary world. Curvy wooden tables suggest elevation lines. Wild clay vessels are cast from unclothed bodies. Cloth is repurposed, plant-dyed and steam-printed with local windfall. Solar energy is harnessed for dyeing cloth and printing on paper. Handwoven cloth and handmade clothing is embellished with geological map symbols and filmed.

In my invitation to join underFOOT, I shared its origins.

In 2015 I suggested to Annette Nykiel, a PhD candidate at the time, that we co-curate an exhibition that would augment her interaction with local artists who create work inspired by the unique qualities of the Western Australian bush. The result was field walking slow making.

Annette and Holly Story occupied the gallery, making work in situ. They exchanged knowledge about fibre, pigments and dyes derived from plants endemic to the southwest.

This exhibition overlapped with our on-site protests at Beeliar wetlands and the clearing of bushland for the controversial Roe Highway extension. Our activist efforts brought us closer together, as discussed by Perdita Phillips in the underFOOT film.

At the exhibition opening, Nandi Chinna’s reading of her poems about local habitat loss still echo in my ears. Sharyn Egan’s balga resin totem animals continue to punctuate our understanding that we live on unceded land.

After graduating, Annette invited the field working slow making artist group to form We must get together some time (WMGTST), a group that became eleven makers and concluded with our exhibition by the same name in IOTA21. Annette’s aim was to foster relationships between regional and urban artists, and emerging and experienced artists.

State funding for a week-long rurally-based professional development artist retreat at Broke Inlet, supported local engagement and place-making through slow making. WMGTST liaised with local scientists, published authors, and artists operating local small businesses. We shared workshops and guided walks. Meals were homecooked and shared at the table. We did all this during and in between Covid lockdowns!

In 2022-23, Perdita, Annette and I worked towards an exhibition titled Underfoot: sTrAtA. I realised underfoot was a great name for a new artists’ group or artists’ circle.

A catalyst for forming underFOOT in 2022 was the IOTA24 call for EOIs. I wrote:

We will propose an exhibition around the concept of mélange… Thematically, I think mélange is a good opportunity to expand our interdisciplinary interests, and build existing relationships between us, with other artists and scientists, and with particular places. Ultimately, underFOOT is much more than possible inclusion in IOTA24. At its heart, it is about nourishing our minds, imaginations and about caring for each another. We can uncover, dream and drive many interesting creative opportunities and outcomes.

Ironically, a holiday in Tasmania resulted in my little family moving to Tasmania within a couple of months of proposing the Mélange exhibition. I considered withdrawing our EOI to IOTA24, but Perdita urged me not to.

I’m so glad I listened. Our face-to-face conversations have been sustained through my recent seven-week artist residency in Western Australia hosted by the City of Melville. I’m back in Tasmania, but our dialogues do not suffer from long distances;  our conversations remain equally intense and rich.

These discussions, and the ideas, artworks, and efforts that roll underfoot from underFOOT’s multidisciplinary practices explore what it means to live and work in a very beautiful but increasingly complex world facing rapid change.

Creating a flexible artists’ group can be highly beneficial. Our efforts have resulted in a string of very well-received exhibitions, state funding, the publication of essays and catalogue exhibitions, peer-reviewed conference papers, and the underFOOT film, a collaboration with Canadian artist Rory Mahony. A lot of this we would not have achieved on our own steam.

Our recent residency at Mundaring Arts Centre and subsequent construction of Perdita’s installation “structural grotto (exchange)” is in some ways a collaborative effort. The not-so-round-table conversations hosted around her custom-designed tables in the grotto feature underFOOT artists facilitating discussions with invited specialists in the fields of art and science, while sharing locally-cooked Indian food. The collaborative and constructive collective energy of underFOOT permeates the planning and installation of the IOTA24 exhibition Mélange which has no curator.

Our individual lives have been substantially enriched by underFOOT. In the film Holly Story explains:

I usually work alone and I have been very reluctant to be involved in any kind of group. But underFOOT is not a group. underFOOT is a companionship. underFOOT is generous. underFOOT is resourceful. underFOOT is persistent. underFOOT is flexible, we come and go, there’s no pressure. We have exhibitions together but that is only a small part of what underFOOT is. It’s a wonderful thing.

About Nien Schwarz

Dr Nien Schwarz is an artist-researcher currently living on the unceded lands of the palawa-pakana in lutruwita (Tasmania). Her most recent film cloth stone clay can be found here.  Visit www.nienschwarz.com

Tags

G36 | table | textiles | Western Australia | with nature