Holdfast is a group exhibition that explores seaweed as both subject and collaborator within contemporary art practice. Bringing together Western Australian artists Nicole Steenhof, Josephine Johnson, and Leza Howie, the exhibition considers how seaweed moves across multiple artistic states — appearing as image, pigment, imprint, structural form, and experimental substance. Rather than treating seaweed as a passive element within marine imagery, the exhibition approaches it as an active material presence that shapes and informs artistic processes.

Four interconnected ideas run through the exhibition: material, form, trace, and speculative ecology. Seaweed functions as a generative material in many works, foregrounding its physical properties and its capacity to shift between living organism and transformed matter. These approaches emphasise process, responsiveness, and the evolving relationship between artist and material.

Form also plays an important role. The flowing structures of fronds and buoyant shapes are reinterpreted through abstraction and spatial investigation, informing composition and visual language. Some works reference seaweed directly, while others distill its forms into minimal or gestural expressions.

Processes of trace and imprint further shape the exhibition, as seaweed leaves records of contact and transformation. The artists are including a podcast/panel discussion presented as part of the exhibition that extends these ideas through conversation, bringing together artists, scientists, and industry voices to consider seaweed’s cultural, ecological, and material significance.