PROCESS.ED: digging the clays again, 2015-2025.

A collaborative work installation with Hunter-based clay artist Helen Dunkerley. I had begun to pull out old works made collaboratively in 2015 for possible inclusion and reworking in an exhibition in 2027, when Articulate Project Space issued a call-out for PROCESS-ED. I seized the moment to exhibit both works side by side, as part of a 10-year process. With just a selection of the old works alongside the newer works on fabric in process. The work was born out of a conversation that took place at an artist residency in 2014 with Helen Dunkerley. It investigates the importance of the hidden stories of Ashfield shale clay and its history within the Sydney region that stretches between the three rivers bordering the city. Recently, I began looking at my great-grandmother's story again, in my paternal line. I have spent quite a lot of time with her image over many years. Hannah Sophia Mead was the daughter of a brick maker, Charles Mead, who married tinsmith Henry Swinfield. Charles migrated here with his brother, Joseph, to make bricks in the 19th century along the Iron Cove Creek in Sydney’s inner western suburbs. Now part of the Sydney Greenway walk.