In our hands, we hold is a major new exhibition at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre (WFAC) bringing together contemporary artists whose practices explore weaving as both material practice and metaphor—revealing how stories, knowledge and relationships are carried across generations.
Co-curated by Zali Morgan (Whadjuk Ballardong and Wilman Noongar) and Abigail Moncrieff (Curatorial & Collections Lead, WFAC), the exhibition considers weaving not simply as the making of objects, but as a way of understanding the world. Across sculpture, installation, textiles, moving image and expanded material practices, artists explore how knowledge is held in the body, shaped by relationships to place, ancestral histories and lived experience.
While foregrounding the work of First Nations women, In our hands, we hold also brings together artists whose practices are informed by family histories, migration and cultural memory. Together, they reveal weaving as an enduring act of connection—one that is ancient and contemporary, constantly in motion, and continually remade through the sharing of stories.
Zali Morgan explains: “These works show that weaving is not only about what we make with our hands, but also what we carry in our bodies—stories, memories, relationships and knowledge that move across generations.”
The exhibition features significant new commissions alongside major existing works by Sharyn Egan (Whadjuk Nyoongar), Mabel Juli (Gija), Lorraine Connelly-Northey (Waradgerie), , Brett Nannup (Noongar with ancestral ties to the Binjareb and Wilman peoples), James NguyenClare Peake, Chantal Fraser (Sāmoan heritage), Beverly Thomson (Yamatji) and Katie West (Yindjibarndi).
Walyalup based artist Sharyn Egan presents a series of portraits woven together into baskets constructed from paper-the works draw from her experience as one of the Stolen Generation. Among the new commissions is a major installation by Lorraine Connelly-Northey, who continues her celebrated practice of using discarded industrial materials, gathered on Country, into representations of Aboriginal Australian fibre bags. Her expansive new work transforms found metal into woven forms that speak to resilience, cultural survival and acts of reclaiming.
Brett Nannup extends his celebrated printmaking practice into illuminated neon works that respond to the crocheted forms created by his mother, artist Laurel Nannup. The works carry the stories, relationships and inherited knowledge embedded within woven practice.
Beverly Thomson’s monumental tree sculpture combines weaving, ceramics and natural materials to honour her mother’s life while reflecting on birth, identity and cultural continuity. Clare Peake creates a shimmering woven beadwork that functions as portal between worlds, drawing on ideas of protection, material transformation and artist knowledge.
Chantal Fraser explores adornment as both protection and power through a striking installation of embellished helmets, eye shields, body amulets and moving image. She is interested in how adornment operates aesthetically, politically, and culturally. James Nguyen reflects on family histories of silk farming in Việt Nam, revealing weaving as labour, survival and interdependence.
A significant work by senior Gija artist Mabel Juli tells an important Ngarranggarni story of forbidden love transformed into the eternal relationship between the moon and the stars-Wadal and Garkeny. Katie West’s immersive textile installation considers embodied knowledges, with her practice grounded in the understanding that the health of human society and Ngurra (Country) mirror one another.
Objects and presented practices speak to generosity and understandings of time that are constantly in flux and motion, rather than presenting weaving solely as an object or tradition. In our hands, we hold refers to artist knowledges and processes, ways of understanding the world and shaping our place in it.
Event Details
In our hands, we hold
Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre
Runs 15th August – 1st Nov | Opening Night: Thursday 20 August from 6.00pm | Free entry
Curators: Zali Morgan and Abigail Moncrieff
Artists: Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Sharyn Egan, Brett Nannup, James Nguyen, Clare Peake, Mabel Juli, Chantal Fraser, Beverly Thomson and Katie West.
