about
Above: Drawing by Penny Sadubin - Threatened Ecological Communities of the Illawarra
WE ARE A GROUP OF ARTISTS IN RESIDENCY AT THE WOLLONGONG ART GALLERY
WE GATHER TO MAKE, DESIGN, WRITE, TALK AND WALK WITH DHARAWAL COUNTRY,
UNCEDED LAND OF THE WADI WADI PEOPLE
We are a group of First Nations and Second Nations people with synergies across creative and ecological practices, with a focus on developing ethical ways to work together on Dharawal Country. We aim to work through a respectful process as we develop a base, enhance reciprocal relationships with local communities and co-create a unified vision from multiple perspectives.
We see our activism as raising community awareness of Country and its unique, local biodiversity, which is vital to humans and non-humans alike.
We hope you will join us.
We are grateful to the wonderful team at Wollongong Art Gallery including Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Aneshka Mora, Louise Brand, Alinta Macguire, Kiki, Julie, Charlotte, Augusta and others who are making our residency truly wonderful.
WAG WAH RESIDENCY TEAM
Peter Hewitt
Peter is a Jerrinja Yuin man with deep family, community, kinship and cultural connections, Peter weaves his expertise in education and creative arts in his role as a Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal Education at the University of Wollongong to help care for Country. Peter's contemporary painting practice spans over two decades, reflected through solo exhibitions and prestigious art prize recognitions.
Nicole Smede
Nicole is a multidisciplinary artist working across sound, video, music composition, traditional language and poetry. She is Artistic Director - First Nations at Red Room poetry. Nicole is a serial collborator and community arts and education worker, lover etc. Worimi Woman. Member of Koori women's choir - Mudjingaal Yangamba
Stephanie Beaupart
Stephanie is a Ngugi woman, lecturer, artist, scientist and works with natural dyes
Catherine Moyle
Catherine is the Conscious Community Lead at Woolyungah Indigenous Centre, University of Wollongong
Photo: Jeremy Lasek
Bianca Hester
Bianca is an artist, writer and educator engaged in place-based practice through artistic research. Her work investigates entanglements between colonial inheritance, extraction, environmental crisis, evolution and extinction evident within locations across the Australian continent. Employing relational, embodied and situational methodologies – she combines experimental fieldwork, engaging the geologic record (in archives and in situ), site-writing, sculptural production, collaboration and performed actions – to develop projects that unpack the material conditions of specific places. This generates an expansive form of public art unfolding in dialogue with a range of interlocutors and participants.
Eliza Maartensz
Eliza is an architect and artist
Emma Rooksby
Emma is an environmental educator and co-founder of Growing Illawarra Natives
Janine Bailey
Janine is an artist, educator who works in communty. She is undertaking a Phd.
Photo: Bill Green
Joanna Fowles
Joanna is an Illawarra-based colour forager and artist. She sources colour from plants to create place-responsive textile artworks and installations in mediums of dye, screenprint, and paint. Her minimal, abstract geometric aesthetic is underpinned by circular design principles, ecological care, and a reverence for nature that guide how she forages and works with materials.
Billie Acosta
Billie has a background in documentary photography and is a passionate storyteller working across film, tv and still images. She's drawn to the intimacy of interior worlds and loves a like-minded group project.
Leon Fuller
Author and absolute tree enthusiast - co-founder of Growing Illawarra Natives
Michele Elliot
Michele is an artist and community educator. She has exhibited her textiles and installation work across Australia, as well as in Singapore and India. Alongside her studio-based practice, Michele runs workshops in slow stitch, embroidery, mending, and shibori. She emphasises skills-based learning and is committed to sharing her knowledge within the Illawarra community, where she lives and works.
Penny Sadubin
Penny is artist educator working at Bundanon, community artist, previously a garden designer and landscape enthusiast.
Lizzie Buckmaster Dove
Lizzie is an artist, writer, researcher, and walker
Katrin Plogstert
Katrin designs ecologically sensitive landscapes across scales and types, centering local native plants to support people and critters. Originally from Germany, Katrin came to Australia to work in National Parks. She is a gardener and landscape architect.
Kathryn Morgan
Kathryn is a teacher, horticulturist, and landscape architect. She is undertaking a Master’s in Landscape Architecture at UTS, and is interested in critical pedagogy, community-driven spatial design, social and multispecies justice, collaborative writing and art-making.
Photo: Katelyn Slyer
Sharon Longridge
An award-winning broadcaster formerly with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sharon is a passionate connector and storyteller
We acknowledge and thank the Traditional Owners of Dharawal Country, the unceded lands
of the Illawarra where we live.
We credit First Nations people for their ongoing work in protecting, holding and sharing knowledge that underpins best practice in landscape design and management all over the world.
This land always was, and always will be,
Aboriginal Land.