WEAVING: ‘Elements of indigo’ in a Beechworth paddock. Image: Jamie Kronborg
BEECHWORTH Arts Council has devised an ambitious art-to-artwear transformation project as one of the keys to its third ‘Spring Arts’ program, which is to run from October 26 to November 25 this year.
Participating artists and crafters will be encouraged to explore and translate ‘elements of indigo’ – drawing on the North East shire’s landscape, sky, seasons, colours, topography, botany, crops, animals and birds – and to depict these as visual designs.
Selected entrants will then be asked to make up their designs in ways that interpret the form of a kilt, or a garment that covers a wearer from navel to knees.
Arts Council president Jamie Kronborg said the project had been inspired by traditions of cultural ‘badging’, where particular forms and styles of clothing throughout history have evolved to identify a people’s tribe, clan, community, place, culture and even country.
“Following an approach from the Beechworth Celtic Festival, which is being staged between November 9 and 11, we’ve come up with and developed the concept in such a way that participating artists will be inspired to tease apart the idea and tradition of tartan and re-work it in a highly contemporary way to identify the communities of Indigo.”
- See Spring Arts dyes Indigo identity to request ‘Elements of indigo’ entry form and project information