By Tanya Steele
Give into the urge to let your eyes roam and thoughts wander as you enter ‘Canopy’ a collaborative exhibition now showing at the Memo in Healesville.
The group exhibition by the natural textile group “Makers Merge” poses questions as you gaze skyward and had a stellar turnout at their opening at The Memo, Healesville on Friday 12 August.
“We were really taken with the idea of tree canopies and hollows and the seed of this exhibition stemmed from there – tree hollows only form after 100 years and this fact kind of blew us away,” Artist Lis De Vries said.
Regional Exhibitions Officer from Yarra Ranges Council Bronwyn Ward said it was a joy to be able to showcase the work here.
“It was a great opportunity to bring in some artists who live in Melbourne, mainly because the focus of this exhibition was around urban biodiversity,” she said.
“The Yarra Ranges is such a border country between the urban, hills, valley, country and forest environment.”
The opening night had a great turnout of over 150 people coming through the opening which is a great result for the artists and the community around them,
Ms Ward said that many of the visitors had not been to the Memo before.
“There was a lovely ripple effect of having a large group of people from Melbourne coming out to this exhibition in particular, but then engaging with the rest of Healesville as well,” she said.
Artist Lis De Vries said the collaboration came about when the Makers Merge group began playing about with recycled art and textiles.
“Most of us graduated from RMIT and we all love textiles and prints – it’s a diverse field,” she said.
Designed to embrace the value of biodiversity, the exhibition uses textiles to fuse urban and wild elements together and features art mediums used in a sustainable way.
“One of our artists Georgina is doing a PhD in biodiversity and she really highlights the lens of thinking about how people and nature come together,” Ms Vries said.
The works use natural offcut yarns and fibres and some are made from recycled plastic plastic bags.
“I don’t generally buy yarns and use only natural fibres,” Ms Vries said.
Ms Vries said Makers Merge has been together for a couple of years and the group has jelled together in collaboration a few times.
“We are using textiles and trying to send a message and have a bit of fun along the way,” she said.
The exhibition also features a nature sounds audio track and the group said they hope people can immerse themselves in the sounds of nature.
“You want to create something that is engaging and hopefully people feel mesmerised by what they see,” Ms Vries said.
“Good art will engage and get the viewer to ask questions of themselves,” she said.
The group was meeting over Zoom during lockdown and this exhibition prompted them to be intentional about meeting in person to prepare this collaboration.
“Sarah was building her tree in her garage because it was so large – it was an inspiring point for all of us,” Ms Vries said.
“We were able to give each other support and feedback and it is interesting how this process leads to our work being connected in the end,” she said.
‘Canopy’ will be on show at The Memo, Healesville, 235 Maroondah Highway until 1 October and is free to view.
