Craft / Longing and Belonging. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, until October 12. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE. 

This exhibition features 10 female artist/migrants who have settled in Canberra.

Each has a different response to living in a country not of their birth.

Exploring cross-cultural themes, Sarit Cohen is exhibiting two groups of work. From 2015, three sets of egg cups decorated with anonymous, wrapped female figures are captured in kitchen whisks. Women are cast in the same domestic roles throughout the world. A pair of ceramic forms titled Staircase Vases are formal works. In a reduced palette, they offer viewers a sense of calm and serenity.

Glass artist Luna Ryan was born in Holland. She spent 10 years collaborating with Tiwi Island artist Jock Puautjimi, during which time she developed her own personal totemic images.

Her outstanding work, Vision of a Fragile Eden, 2007, is made from cast recycled TV screens. Small objects and markings are incorporated into the surfaces of seven circular works that are mounted on a wall.

The mounts are particularly sophisticated, and she called on two craftspeople in Canberra to assist. These works speak of environmental loss and a mixture of hope and sadness.

Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser is showing two traditional shibori and indigo works. Folded 1 is in indigo dye, with a geometric design.

The stitched lines cross each other creating a three dimensional effect.

Folding Gold 1 has a heavily painted gold surface, and is stiff. It is caught at the base, as if to form a pocket to capture small items. Again, shibori stitching lines move across the surface, in different shades of heavy gold paint.

Textile artist Mariana del Castillo is showing works which came out of her experiences of the bush fires in 2019-20. She was undertaking a residency at Bundanon, in bushland near Nowra, where the landscape had been devastated by fire and still bore their evidence. There was also evidence of regeneration – a dichotomy of destruction and resilience. The careful stitching, painting and mark making on repurposed linen conveys the loss, at the same time as reminding us of our ability to get on with life.

Another Dutch migrant, Monique van Nieuwland, a weaver is showing three finely woven works in monofilament, polyester, cotton and rayon. Thio Yianni is a tribute to her partner’s Greek uncle. The image is so fine, one can barely see it, as it floats. In My Pocket (homage to writer Annie MG Schmidt and illustrator Fiep) is an image of children moving on a swing. These works are so fine, they are barely there, and they move with the air currents in the space.

These women are successful artists and we are the beneficiaries of their migration to Australia.