Metropolitan South

Title: Breach
Medium: Painting
School: Springfield Central State High School

Artist Statement:
My artwork was developed and redirected from the focus being about personal perspectives and wanting others to experience what you feel to the focus of encompassing emotion. This work focuses on the process of emotion and how emotion is expressed in stages. I want to portray through my oil painting, how an individual’s emotions can spiral, causing both emotional and physical distress. This is shown in facial expressions and the still movement of the individual. I want to show shots in time of an individual in emotional distress, the colour and shades of the body representing emotion. The blue woman representing dissociation, her eyes wide and her body caving in on itself. Her arms around herself in comfort representing the exhaustion of racing thoughts and the need for comfort.

Title: Series of Leaves
Medium: Textiles
School: Cleveland District State High School

Artist Statement:
What happens when you don’t just depict nature, but collaborate with it? Nature is all around us, yet it took a chance encounter with Hillary Water Fayle’s artworks for me to consider incorporating it into my art. Series of Leaves explores a different way of approaching how natural elements are represented in art by literally bringing nature into the artwork. By contrasting organic surfaces with precise, geometric stitching inspired by Kazuhito Takadoi, Series of Leaves invites viewers to contemplate the delicate tension and connection between natural processes and human creation.

Title: Heaven’s Soul
Medium: Sculpture
School: Ormiston College

Artist Statement:
Heaven’s Soul explores death as a spiritual rebirth and a reawakening of oneself, through my personal and cultural beliefs surrounding religion. The suspended plaster mould of my body reflects my religious upbringing on my Peruvian father’s side, where Easter represents renewal, hope and eternal life. Inspired by Giuseppe Sanmartino’s The Veiled Christ, the flowing folds of calico create a sense of movement as they trail down the figure. Recontextualised through a contemporary context, the pastel pink, purple, blue, yellow and green seen during childhood Easter egg hunts expand across the main core of my own figure, symbolising resurrection and the awakening of the soul. The figure’s placement at waist height encourages the audience to walk around it, creating an intimate and reflective experience from multiple angles. This work invites you to not view death as an ending, instead presenting it as a sacred passage toward spiritual renewal.

Title: Oorlogsheld
Medium: Quilt
School: Redlands College (Wellington Point)

Artist Statement:
Oorlogsheld is an extremely personal artwork dedicated to my father’s life after his experience in the Angolan Border War. This artwork explores an alternative view that recognises my father as a complex individual, not just as a veteran of war. Through referencing and integrating textile techniques used by Sonja Carmicheal and Joan Schulze I was able to alter the perspective of my artwork. Oorlogsheld exposes the lingering effects of war whilst still acknowledging his individuality as a person. Oorlogsheld incorporates both traditional and contemporary practices, such as hand-quilting, weaving and printmaking to create an intricate narrative. It is made up of 50 different unique fabric tiles that celebrate intimate moments in my father’s life, 27 of which embody a photograph of an evanescent memory. Through the use of deliberate composition, Oorlogsheld transforms into a tactile preservation of my father's life. A homage to my dad.

Title: Second Skin
Medium: Photography
School: St Aidan's Anglican Girls School (Corinda)

Artist Statement:
Second Skin is a photo of 7 items of distressed clothing that explores the layered process of identity formation through the shedding of past selves. Drawing inspiration from the biological processes of moulting, where organisms shed old skin to grow, the series uses second-hand clothing as a metaphor for emotional and psychological growth. Each garment, painted white to stiffen and wrinkle, represents a different life stage, with emotionally resonant words written in charcoal to reflect the emotional perspectives of an infant to adulthood. I was inspired by artist Beverley Ayling-Smith who explores concepts of grief, memory and loss through textured layered fabrics that metaphorically hold traces of human experience and emotional residue. The non-literal meaning of the artwork is how we must shed past versions of ourselves to grow. These selves remain part of our story but no longer weigh us down, allowing us to evolve into something new.

Title: Chewed Away
Medium: Sculpture
School: Anglican Church Grammar School (East Brisbane)

Artist Statement:
Chewed Away explores the unpredictable duality of nature, its ability to be both beautiful and destructive. Inspired by Cyclone Alfred, the work reflects on the eerie stillness and growing anxiety that surrounded its delayed landfall. Constantly shifting forecasts, created a sense of unease, highlighting our human need to predict and control what ultimately cannot be. Chewed gum, an unconventional material, forms a spiral shape reminiscent of a cyclone viewed from above. It represents the clouds and quiet tension before the storm. For me, chewing gum is a calming ritual, a way to manage anxiety, contrasting with the fear and tension that builds in the face of a natural disaster. By using something familiar in an unexpected way, the work engages viewers to reflect on the fragile balance between peace and chaos and our uneasy relationship with forces far beyond our control.

Title: What is She Now?​
Medium: Painting and electronic imaging
School: Corinda State High School

Artist Statement:
Presented together, these diverse works form a dialogue between tradition and modernity. The juxtaposed painting and animation critique contested perspectives on femininity. What is She Now? explores how femininity has been reimagined across time and media. The still-life’s composition was generated using artificial intelligence to form symbolically feminine imagery. Ironically, this is informed by patriarchal data. The animation reinterprets these symbols using abstraction, layering and motion to portray contemporary society’s contested and fragmented lenses which we view femininity through today. This work revives tradition, while simultaneously confronting modern ambiguity. It ultimately insists that femininity shouldn’t be shamed. It aims to generate reflection surrounding femininity in a modern context. Why must femininity be rejected to gain respect? Can traditional femininity be celebrated instead of being a symbol of oppression? What is She Now? is not a retreat from feminism, but a reimagining of the lens through which we view it.

Title: Emu in the Sky
Medium: Acrylic on killer boomerang
School: Anglican Church Grammar School (East Brisbane)

Artist Statement:
Aboriginal people show harmony to the land by abiding by reciprocity: 'what you receive from Mother Earth, you give back'. The focus of my artwork Emu in the Sky draws upon Aboriginal people’s deep connection to land and ancient knowledge. Formed by the dusty milky way, the Emu constellation signals change of season and permits the limited collection of Emu eggs for sustenance. While reciprocity reinforces the requirement to give back, further rules to the land apply, enforcing the requirement to not take too much, including food or resources from the same area, ensuring vegetation and animals can regenerate and repopulate. Brown, ochre, red and white directly represent the land, while the silhouette of the emu glows in infinite wisdom as the focal point of the artwork. The story of the Emu is presented on the killer boomerang (a hunting weapon).

Title: Mani Divine (Divine Hands)
Medium: Digital manipulation
School: Brisbane School of Distance Education

Artist Statement:
Just as no 2 handprints are alike, so too are our spiritual paths uniquely our own. By creating Mani Divine (Divine Hands), I personify how soul contracts, purposes, lessons, experiences, the reason you were born and the knowledge gained during your time on Earth will differ between you and me. To portray this, I digitally manipulated the scans of my family’s hands—highlighting the distinct lines, shape, shades and make-up of each hand and overlayed these images to create 5 unique works. I was inspired by cultural and contemporary contexts, the physical and meaningful layering of Muniz’s work, and the digital manipulation and emphasis on the hand in Conner’s work. I subject viewers to my interpretation of spirituality, which forces them to question what they believe to be true about their spiritual journey: what is their purpose, what are they meant to learn and experience, why were they born and what are they meant to gain from this experience? This collection of works concludes my exploration of spirituality. I personified my enlightenment and ultimate understanding of the spiritual realm. Your spiritual journey is yours alone—no one else can walk it for you.

Title: Nature by Nature
Medium: Textile 2D relief
School: Westside Christian College

Artist Statement:
This piece represents the growth and transformation that individuals, myself included, undergo throughout life. It explores how our past mistakes and experiences shape the people we become. The form, created through layers of natural materials and fine linework, resembles the cross-section of a tree stump, symbolising time and memory. Just as a tree's rings reveal its age and history, each layer in this piece reflects different stages of life, with varying textures and colours representing distinct experiences.

Title: Growth at a Cost
Medium: Sculpture
School: Brisbane State High School

Artist Statement:
Growth at a Cost explores the destructive impact of human progress on the natural world. Carved books—symbols of knowledge, growth, and human advancement—are formed into a tree stump, a haunting reminder of the forest being destroyed. This reflects how humanity’s pursuit of progress often comes at the expense of the environment. The books represent both our desire to preserve and share knowledge, and the irony that knowledge is contributing to deforestation and environmental collapse. The work highlights the tension between development and ecological destruction, provoking reflection on our role in this fragile world and long-term consequences of our actions.

Title: Superfaux
Medium: Installation
School: Cannon Hill Anglican College

Artist Statement:
As the societal and political climate grows darker, finding joy in everyday life becomes increasingly difficult. Yet we still long for that childlike sense of wonder. Superfaux is an interactive, surreal shopping experience where nothing is as it seems—an escape into the absurd. Inspired by the playful miniature installations of Slinkachu, I transformed the familiar grocery store into a site of whimsy humour and colourful chaos. Bizarre products, warped branding, and vibrant displays invite viewers to laugh, touch, and explore. Through Superfaux, I aim to reconnect audiences with the delight and curiosity often lost when we grow older. This work encourages people to see the mundane with fresh eyes and to embrace the joy in ridiculousness. In difficult times, I believe art has the power to offer relief and lightness. Superfaux exists purely to make people smile—even when the world around them feels joyless.

Title: Authentic Works
Medium: Photography
School: St Aidan's Anglican Girls School

Artist Statement:
Authentic Works examines the dehumanisation of creativity due to AI. The work asks viewers to consider plagiarism in databases and the reliance on existing sources in the algorithmic acquisition used in AI-generated content. The triptych was made by collaging pastiches of three famous artworks using digitally manipulated scans of motherboards. Linseed oil was then used to create ‘windows’ in these collages, allowing underlaid images of artworks that inspired them to bleed through. Echoing behind their motherboard appropriations, these important original artworks show the human touch in creativity while linseed oil acts as the symbolic conduit due its use as a surface protector for both paint and metal. These elements symbolise technology’s foundational role in contemporary considerations of creative ‘content’ and question to what degree creativity can exist outside of human input.

Title: Office Architecture
Medium: Print
School: Anglican Church Grammar School (East Brisbane)

Artist Statement:
This artwork was inspired by modern day density. How buildings and cities expand for the growing population, like in Hong Kong and China with the endless apartment blocks. I capture this same dystopic density in this work through the brutal repetition of the office. Its large scale emphasises humanity’s expansion whilst the tightly packed office is designed to create a claustrophobic feeling. The artwork challenges high density in urban society and dystopian futures.

Title: MIND.BODY.SOUL
Medium: Painting
School: Springfield Central State High School

Artist Statement:
Drawing on the idea of ‘Eusexua’ coined by the artist FKA twigs referring to a transcendent feeling being a blend of the word’s euphoria and sexual. Her album of the same name discusses this theme of music and dance as a transformative experience drawing on the techno and rave scene. I found this idea of transcendence through art like music and dance very inspirational to my work seeing the connection of the physical movement to the heightened state of mind achieved, using that theme as a basis for my new body of work. My past work used the idea of connecting the mental and physical with a core tenet of finding acceptance and comfort in the balance of the mental self and physical self. My current work explores this idea of transcendence of the soul and the focus on this spiritual aspect of yourself.

Title: ‘Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good’ – John Steinbeck
Medium: Sculpture
School: Cleveland District State High School

Artist Statement:
Perfection stems from constant comparison. As children, we embody joy, wonder and bewilderment, fully immersed in life's experiences. Captured in the facial features of a small child and symbolising unfiltered happiness with the freedom to explore interests, the white head symbolises how children are good. Conversely, the second black-sculpture embodies the crippling strive for perfection, her features are light and serene on the surface, but beneath this appearance, she is tired, alone and struggling, with a touch of relief. These pieces in tandem narrate the journey from childlike wonder and joy to the fear of not reaching perfection and finally the relief of realising it is not necessary.

Title: CAR-T
Medium: Drawing
School: Ipswich Grammar School

Artist Statement:
This tortuous spread of complex colours and gluttonous details was conceived by the most powerful tool of all, the brain. No image references, no pencil, just the distilled culmination of what inspires me, shown raw. Each individual sketch tries to represent that art knows no boundaries; each sketch is a trial, a problem. Even though every crowded detail has its own story and purpose, it all comes together in harmony to create a dense narrative to be interpreted through the eyes and mind like a beautiful classical counterpoint. The pen has moulded the conduit between mind and the piece, at only 3​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ colours and a shade, there exists infinite possibilities. As a finale to the piece, its carcass hoisted above. I have left my mark, and now your job is to feast on the smorgasbord of details laid out for your ocular pleasure.

Title: Timeline Tree
Medium: Painting
School: Mount Gravatt State High School

Artist Statement:
Portraits have been used to document family for centuries. Contemporary society and its use of technology has almost eliminated traditional portraiture, and many artists have moved away from traditional art practices. These works are intended as an alternate to contemporary artworks that use technology or are digital. I wish to represent 2​​ family members, my grandmother and my great grandmother in a medium that they were familiar with. It focusses on the formal process of painting, the materials and techniques used. Timeline Tree is a deeply personal work that represents my connection to my family. I have manipulated colour to symbolise ageing and the passing of time. It is also a reaction to contemporary art practices, using more traditional techniques to remind viewers of the beauty of paint strokes and tactile quality of paint on canvas.

Title: ​​This Is Just How It Is
Medium: Installation
School: Cannon Hill Anglican College (Cannon Hill)

Artist Statement:
A mother breaks the feet of the girls she loves most, and the line between generations become blurred​. This Is Just How It Is presents a porcelain cast of 2 baby-doll feet alongside a video projection. In one moment, a figure of domesticity is encased by sewing patterns and cookbooks; the other, bathed in red, revealing a traditional wedding reception dress. The 2 flicker between bride, daughter and the ghost of inheritance. The feet were shattered, repaired and bound by strands of my own hair. Hair is a marker of identity; something inherited and entangled in love and control. Influenced by Julie Rrap’s feminist reconstructions, this work explores generational trauma through the lens of femininity. It references the customs of foot-binding to reflect a contemporary narrative. This fragmented performance invites the audience to consider the persistence of Confucian philosophy and internalised misogyny in a rigid gender system despite evolving feminism.

Title: Noise
Medium: Drawing
School: Ipswich Grammar School

Artist Statement:
I chose to draw myself not as an act of self-portraiture alone, but as a mirror for others. The face is mine, but the experience is collective: doubt, fear and motivation are something we all confront. By using my own image, I place myself in a position of vulnerability, inviting viewers to recognise themselves in me. The surrounding words symbolise internal dialogue, and I’ve arranged them intentionally: affirmations remaining close while negative words drift further into the distance, echoing the choices we make about what we hold near and what we let fade. The layer of pastel mimics the fog of uncertainty while sharper acrylic forms carve through as moments of clarity and resilience. Ultimately my work is about the power of perception; of withstanding all existing doubts, while the strength of motivations that shapes us, allows us to endure.

Title: Home Video System
Medium: Installation
School: Anglican Church Grammar School (East Brisbane)

Artist Statement:
Working with dated equipment meant embracing its flaws—low resolution, distortion, and the imperfect charm of video home system (VHS). My aim was to reconstruct a nostalgic home video setup with a functioning videocassette recorder (VCR) and cathode ray tube (CRT) television, the looped video acting as the focal point to showcase analogue technology in its raw form. The scene itself was digitally built in Blender, with added layers of effects through Premiere Pro and After Effects, merging virtual creation with physical display. By running the digital composition through VHS, the work highlights both the form and fragility of old technology. The warped images and glitches become part of the aesthetic, reflecting the fading lifespan of analogue media. This piece is both a homage and a critique—celebrating the tactile presence of outdated devices while reminding us of their slow disappearance in a digital age.

Title: Rejuvenating the Earth
Medium: Sculpture
School: St Aidan's Anglican Girls School

Artist Statement:
Rejuvenating the Earth is a series of life-sized soft sculpture hot water bottles made with reclaimed fabric. The fabric of each hot water bottle depicts endangered plant species, captured through sun-exposure, using heliographic dye. Each plant, preserved in this state of disappearing, has then been colourfully felted to suggest rejuvenation and hope of renewal. My artwork speaks to climate change and the accelerating impact human activity has had toward botanical extinction, particularly through over-consumption. The work aims to challenge us to see the greater impact of consumerism—that what might offer us temporary warmth and comfort belies irreparable consequences.

Title: Gladwell and the Prince (2025)
Medium: Photography
School: Moreton Bay College

Artist Statement:
Gladwell and the Prince is a photography series inspired by artists Shaun Gladwell and Richard Prince. After meeting Gladwell in 2024, and talking with him, I became interested in how the post-apocalyptic genre romanticises survivalism, isolation and masculinity. I connected this with my interest in the art historical genre of ‘sublime landscapes’. I recontextualised Gladwell’s MADDESTMAXIMVS series, replacing the motorcycle with the figure of a horse. Gladwell’s open-armed pose, used as a motif, is ambiguous suggesting both a sense of vulnerability and freedom, adding another layer of romanticism. I reference Prince’s Marlboro Country works to explore the idealised masculine tropes of cowboys that embody freedom, heroism and self-assuredness. The work features me in various costumes and poses that reflect the strange subculture of ‘suburban cowboys’ that epitomise societies’ tendency to romanticise rural lifestyles. This reflects the cultural-limbo I have grown up with, living on farmland just 30-minutes from the city.

Title: Surreal Sonder
Medium: Painting
School: Centenary State High School

Artist Statement:
Sonder is our intense realisation that every other individual is living a life as complex and vivid as our own. Surreal Sonder delves into our curiosity, appreciation and humility amongst our shared human experiences to comment on intricate, often unseen, layers of our everyday lives taken for granted. Communicated through the contemporary context of perspective, this series transports audiences into familiar settings such as cafes and gardens; common places that individuals frequent, using warm, muted colours, and balanced compositions composed of card-paper, watercolour and canvas. Accentuating audiences' empathy whilst offering a visual escape from the business of 21st Century life by encouraging them to look closer through its small scaling, offering a sense of perspective through an alternate viewpoint on seemingly mundane life by curating numerous moments of beauty in plain sight.

Title: You Do Belong
Medium: Film/electronic imaging
School: Cavendish Road State High School

Artist Statement:
You Do Belong explores the themes of belonging and identity through the lens of immigration. The video clip urges the audience to consider that Australia is a country where anyone can belong. This is achieved through non-traditional techniques such as animation and digital art to challenge the audience’s perceptions of the world around them, especially the mundane parts of life. These parts of life call out to the protagonist, who is an immigrant, ‘you do belong’. Therefore, the work was created in a personal and cultural context. By projecting the video in a large room, the content becomes dynamic and visually appealing to audiences. It urges viewers to sit and watch, fostering deeper emotional connections with the audience. The work is inspired by Lunga Ntila who also uses digitally altered photography to portray her perceptions of the world around her, a theme also demonstrated in You Do Belong.

Title: The Hearth
Medium: Painting
School: Cavendish Road State High School

Artist Statement:
Throughout the painting The Hearth my focus was family and home and how they relate. Developed in a personal and contemporary context, linked to family traditions of eating together at the dinner table, personal memories patterned along the fabric symbolises the struggle, in a modern world of family members only having time to converse at the end of the day over the dining table. The message entwined is how home is a representative of family and withholds memories, core tradition and culture that is personal to family. A table runner is used to portray the connection between the hearth that is the dinner table, surrounded by family. As the eye follows along the table runner, a story of nostalgia and memories are depicted in vibrant colours, visualising a positive perspective to symbolise the happiness and warmth felt in my family home. Alexia McKindsey and Grace Cossington Smith were used as inspiration with the vividity of colours and a more abstract painting style to emphasize the bright tones and overall messages. Altogether, a comforting family dynamic is suggested by the colourful subject matter of the table runner.

Title: Heavens
Medium: Watercolour, cast sugar and resin toad and sugarcane
School: Mansfield State High School

Artist Statement:
Heavens explores the bitter consequences of human intervention, masked by the illusion of good intentions. The cane toad, introduced to Australia by humans and now demonised, becomes a scapegoat— blamed, hated and ‘humanely’ destroyed for failing a task it was never equipped to complete. A caramelised sugared toad is captured mid-leap beneath the sugarcane, striving toward an unreachable goal: the beetle it was meant to control. The sweetness of the medium is deliberately deceptive, a beautiful surface concealing a history of violence. We like our narratives, like our sugar, sweet and palatable. But Heavens asks, at what cost? What if the things we find sweetest like progress, control, even compassion—are laced with cruelty? The viewer is left to question not only the toad’s fate, but the cost of our own ‘sweet’ decisions.

Title: Tend the Soil
Medium: Photographs and acrylic nails
School: Corinda State High School

Artist Statement:
Are we mere observers or active participants in the preservation of our natural world? Tend the Soil portrays the tension between our appreciation of natural environments and our willingness to actively nurture and protect them. The left image of the diptych features a series of miniature hand painted landscapes. The highly polished images on elongated artificial nails, portrays our admiration for beautiful, insta-worthy vistas and wildlife. However, a preoccupation with ourselves and aesthetics has thwarted our desire to tend the soil and ensure natural environments endure for future generations. In contrast, the opposing hand connects flourishing organic matter and the hand, portraying the outcome of nurturing our Earth. Through this diptych, I invite you to reflect on your relationship with our environment. Are you a passive appreciator of our precarious environment or do you actively ‘tend the soil’ to take meaningful action to protect and nurture it?

Title: Perspective
Medium: Painting
School: Ipswich Grammar School

Artist Statement:
Perspective explores the tension between collective and individual viewpoints. A vast, vibrant cityscape bursts with life and colour, yet it is encircled by the grittier, more dramatised personal perspectives of the characters who inhabit it. This interplay of visuals becomes a catalyst for storytelling, inviting the audience to breathe life into the figures and connect with their struggles. The cityscape offers a broad, and optimistic, though perhaps naïve view of the world, while the intimate portraits expose raw, personal truths. When experienced together, these contrasting elements encourage viewers to bridge the gap: to link the faces in the portraits with the figures in the city, gaining a dual perspective that deepens the narrative they’ve created. Drawing inspiration from the iconic Where’s Wally? books, the work disperses people not through density of crowd, but through bursts of colour turning visual exploration into a search for human stories.

Title: Super Straw Man
Medium: Sculpture
School: Centenary State High School

Artist Statement:
Super Straw Man responds to the future issues of plastic pollution—over 33 billion pounds enter the ocean annually (OCEANA, n.d.). Two almost life-sized 3D-figures are constructed from non-traditional materials of straws, exploring the contemporary context and carrying deeper environmental meaning. The first figure is a vibrant, rainbow coloured superhero standing above while facing a villain constructed in white straws, symbolising single use plastic and the loss of colour due to pollution. Appropriating familiar superheroes and villains, the artwork catches the awe of a young audience to symbolise sustainability versus waste. Just as a superhero ‘saves the day’, the audience is encouraged to do the same with recycling. Offering an alternate representation of environmental issues, the familiar imagery playfully engages children in art, creating a positive impact. The impressive scale, fun story and accessible medium engages audiences to make their own recycled art or simply recycle for a sustainable future.

Title: My Nana Jen
Medium: Drawing
School: Cleveland District State High School

Artist Statement:
There’s a moment when someone you love forgets your name. Then your face. And then everything. This work became the farewell I never got to give. It mourns the silent unravelling of my Nana’s mind as dementia slowly stole the pieces of her, she never meant to lose. The pieces I loved most. Whilst creating this, she unexpectedly passed, the portrait later displayed at her memorial as a final tribute. Her image is soft, still and calm, yet everything around her slips away. The surrounding distortion contrasts with the realism of her face, echoing the confusion of fading memory. Scattered across the piece are her real handwritten notes. These are not just scribbles but desperate fragments her voice, trying to stay. This work is grief explained in pencil. It asks you to feel the absence within presence, and the pain of being forgotten by someone who once knew you best.

Title: After Us
Medium: Sculpture
School: Brisbane State High School

Artist Statement:
After Us is a sculptural exploration of nature’s quiet resistance against human excess, commenting on the interconnections between nature and humanity. The sequence of Coke cans—symbols of globalisation, consumerism and disposable culture—act as scaffolding for the fungal reclamation of the man-made. The fungi consuming the cans represent more than just nature’s strength— they act as a metaphor, highlighting how humanity has long consumed nature: extracting, exploiting, and discarding to serve human consumption and convenience. This reclamation, due to its grotesque, unsettling appearance, prompts audiences to reflect on the ways in which they themselves have harmed nature. In a contemporary world shaped by climate and environmental crisis, After Us provides commentary on the fragility of humanity and the interlinked nature of natural and human environments.

Title: Stolen Culture, Woven Waste
Medium: Sculpture
School: Redlands College

Artist Statement:
This work explores the deep cultural and spiritual connection between Indigenous people and the environment, confronting the impacts of colonisation. Colonisation and industrialisation disrupted traditional sustainable practices, polluting sacred landscapes and causing cultural loss. Emu feathers, gifted by an Indigenous relative, are woven into the work to symbolise ancestral strength and matriarchal connection. The circles in the weaving and at the base represent bora rings, sacred ceremonial sites destroyed through colonisation and development, symbolising environmental harm and cultural erasure. This work takes the form of a ceremonial cape, draped to reveal story and history. Imagery across the woman’s body reflects cultural loss and environmental damage. Influenced by Judith Wright’s Bora Ring, Frank Malkorda and Sonja Carmichael’s woven works, I wrote Wright’s poem and my own onto the figure. The weaving honours traditions, while plastic threaded through it reveals how pollution impacts culture and has become woven into future generations. ​​