As everyday objects, textiles form the background of our life, witnessing every moment, forming to our shapes, absorbing stains, sweat, tears and sentiments. Whether it be the clothing on our backs, blankets that keep us warm, or the carpet beneath out feet, textiles, are a constant presence in our life and are collectors of moments, absorbed from the people to interact with them.

Each piece of fabric within this work has been collected from charity shops located in the local Fitzroy/Brunswick Area. These materials are both mundane, yet mysterious. Bedding, pillowcases, and other household textiles, compiled together, form an assemblage of a community, of unknown people, places and memories held within the material. While their origins are unknown, viewers are united by the familiarity of these everyday materials, drawing on their own interactions with the personal textile objects in their lives.

Flowing lines are sewn and then cut, revealing each layer, a mapping of memory. These lines, in hues of blue, swirling like water, pays homage to the Merri Creek, a significant body of water connecting the suburbs of Melbourne, nurturing our ecosystems and the ever-changing communities that surround it.

Artist Biography

Hannah Hall (b. 2000) is a Naarm/Melbourne based artist creating work that investigates materiality, craft, domesticity, and memory. Influenced by modernist abstraction and late 20th century textile art history, expanded painting and craft practices collide, to create works that occupy a hybrid space between painting and textile. Traditional techniques such as smocking, slashing, pleating, ruffling, and tucking are applied at labour intensive scale to found or gifted materials including old clothes, bedsheets, curtains, and pillowcases. Each piece of material is often altered with staining techniques that use spices, fruits, vegetables, and synthetic pigments. Using second-hand materials, each work contemplates the presence and absence of unknown moments, bodies, and people, from each material’s history. Hannah’s practice examines relationships between art and craft, revealing the spillages, intimacies, and complexities of textiles, not only in the unpredictable way they fold, drape, and absorb pigment, but also in the way they evoke memories and emotional responses.