A Stitch in Time: The Australian Tapestry Workshop
VAULT looks at the extraordinary collaborations between contemporary Australian artists and the Australian Tapestry Workshop over the last 40 years.
Image credit: Atong Atem with the Self Portrait in July (4) tapestry
at the Australian Tapestry Workshop. Photo: Marie-Luise Skibbe
For more than 40 years, the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) has positioned itself as a place of creative excellence within the global art and design community. Its establishment in 1976 was, in part, a response to the crafts revival unfolding across the country during this decade. ATW set out to provide Australian creatives and enthusiasts with the country’s first tapestry studio and has continued to support the traditional practice of weaving through the process of collaboration, working alongside leading contemporary artists and designers. The organisation has produced tapestries acquired by an ever-growing number of private collections and public institutions around the world.
The workshop is currently housed in a Victorian Gothic-style building in South Melbourne, originally designed by prominent Melbourne architect TJ Crouch and recently renovated by Williams Boag Architects. The building itself is rich with textile history, and is now home to a team of weavers, a master dyer and a mix of arts professionals who oversee a dynamic public program and exhibition schedule.
In response to the challenges of Covid-19, ATW launched a new initiative called Weaving Futures for the purpose of commissioning new work from artists throughout Australia. Earlier this year, with philanthropic support from the Playking Foundation as well as funding from Creative Victoria, the ATW invited four Melbourne based artists – Atong Atem, Troy Emery, Eugenia Lim and Hayley Millar Baker – to partner with weavers Pamela Joyce, Emma Sulzer, Tim Gresham and Amy Cornell. Together, the artists and weavers produced tapestries for inclusion in the recent exhibition Artist + Weaver: New Contemporary Tapestries (2021). By facilitating an opportunity to explore a new medium, ...Subscribe to read this article in full
