Compost

Garden of Stories

Sunburnt wool before it was removed, washed and ironed

An essential feature of any garden is the compost, from which new life emerges.

As Hannah Arendt writes: “the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization”

For other examples, see the #DecayisBeautiful hashtag.

The Kintsugi Collection: The resilient beauty of Jaipur weaving - Rahul Kapoor celebrates a collection of handwoven rugs designed by Vikram Kapoor and woven by local artisans on over 1,200 looms.
Biomater: Life hanging by a thread - Catalina Mena reflects on the exhibition in Chile by Clarisa Menteguiaga, Liliana Ojeda, and Paulina Villalobos, which witnesses the beauty of decay in the gallery.
Judith Crispin ✿ Picturing the gentleness of death - Alasdair Foster writes about the Lumachrome Glass Printing by Judith Crispin that renders decay in stillness.
Decay is beautiful - Samorn Sanixay reflects on the uses of decomposition in textile dyeing and how it resonates with Buddhism and the refugee experience.
Australia Phoenix: A Cosmology - Susan Purdy takes on a journey into deep time, using the medium of photogram to trace the history of a landscape from creation story to recent devastating bushfires.
Time makes beauty: Jewellery in the senescent field - Liliana Ojeda's "new" work reflects the beauty of old age, making "contemporary" jewellery more than a celebration of youth.
Life & Death ✿ An exhibition that designs its own demise - Life & Death is an exhibition curated by Dale Hardiman and Tom Skeehan which invites creative practitioners to create work which takes into account its own decay. Designer and researcher Guy Keulemans questions why we cling to objects despite their inevitable ephemerality.
Bakhiya: The beauty of the imperfect - Bakhiya is not just a form of sewing with long stitches. It also offers a sufi meditation on the beauty of the imperfect and fragility of life, as reflected in these poignant works at Threshold Art Gallery, Delhi. 
Maggie Baxter ✿ Peeling walls and tattered ledgers - Maggie Baxter shares new works that use embroidery to evoke the textures of time she has found in India.
Shilp Shakti: A legacy midst crisis & opportunity - Ashoke Chatterjee champions craft as a vital part of Indian society and economy at an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Visva Bharati, the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan.
The art of repair: Keiko Ikoma’s subtle kintsugi - Ryan Leahey presents the work of Keiko Ikoma, whose delicate repair attempts to honour the spirit of the broken object.
Intuitive Thread: The Beauty of Process in Japanese Textiles - While living in Kyoto, Eloise Rapp found four textile artists using traditional techniques in new ways.
Composing decomposition: An exhibition by Louiseann King - Clare Needham describes how Louiseann King's bronze-cast objects bring decomposition to the table.
The power of transformative repair - Penny Craswell writes about Object Therapy, an exhibition currently on display at the Australian Design Centre, featuring Elizabeth Macky’s broken knitting needle was creatively transformed by designers Guy Keulemans and Kyoko Hashimoto in a project exploring memory, meaning, repair and waste.
Thailand residency: A string of flowers – a sequence of events - Jess Dare takes up a residency in Thailand to understand the culture of the garland. She faces a dilemma. How can a jeweller, who makes works of lasting value, respond to the culture of the garland which is so ephemeral?

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Genesis 3:19 (King James Version)

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