My work is about using drawing and textiles to talk about the things we often choose to ignore.
I’m an artist, craftivist and psychologist. I believe that when we stitch, we aren’t just
making something beautiful—we are taking the time to listen, to learn, and to
confront the truth.

What I do
I create drawing and textile-based projects that
focus on "truth-telling." My work often centres on the history of
Blackbirding—the kidnapping and forced labour of Pacific Islanders in Australia.
I use embroidery, applique and quilting to recontextualise spaces, landmarks and symbols to illustrate that our
national story is incomplete.

How I do it
I don’t work alone. 

My process is based on "relational accountability", which requires a commitment to listening, seeking permission, and ensuring that the community is the one guiding the work. My role is one of facilitator, providing structural scaffolding only, so the community's voices take centrestage.

We use simple tools like chain stitch and indigo cloth to create
"counter-archives", textiles that act as a record of the history the
nation has left out.  My individual art practice draws upon similar principles.

Why I do it
I do this because I believe that as
Australians, we can’t truly "grow up" until we face our past. I am a
fifth-generation Australian with Scottish, English, and German heritage. This
history means I am a direct descendant of the settler-colonial project that
built the Australia we know today. As the daughter of an Australian Vietnam Veteran, I inherited both settler-colonial history and military narratives, which shielded me from the truth.

For a long time, I didn't know about
Blackbirding, and I realised that my own silence—and the silence of the
education system I grew up in—was part of the problem.  My practice is an exercise in unravelling colonial structures. This is not a project that is 'finished'.  It is a process  of constant unlearning.  I am engaged in an ongoing interrogation of my own positionality and the ways in which these systems have shaped my worldview.

M E T H O D O L O G Y

  • The Relational

    Title I: THE GATHERING

    A documentation of the relational workshops. This foundational stage utilises collective textile labour as a therapeutic vessel for Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI)  and Ni-Vanuatu descendants. By facilitating the communal handling of materials, the workshop environment acts as an institutional space for relational healing, oral history transmission, and the collective processing of systemic intergenerational trauma.

  • The Materiality

    Title II: THE SUTURE

    #UDHR Quilt Project: Australia Has A Slave History Too. The completed textile block. This work manifests the physical and symbolic "suturing" of history. Through the repetitive, structural application of the signature chain stitch, individual narratives and archival fragments are bound together, transforming raw fabric into a permanent, tactile record of ancestral connection and survival.

  • The Institutional

    Title III: THE INTERVENTION

    Detail of the archival intervention installed at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD), Old Parliament House. This stage represents the direct infiltration and critique of colonial architecture. By placing the community-crafted record within the physical structures of state power, the work disrupts the "Great Australian Silence" and demands structural truth-telling.