Floor Talk: landlines/tracelines

landlines/tracelines is the outcome of time spent observing, walking and researching the ephemera that appears under my feet. On the shore near my home on Dharawal Country, in my garden, and occasionally further afield. I gather drift matter, fallen, blown or washed ashore in the dark of night. These are migratory materials, used for making and marked by a lack of belongingness.

Over years of observing, listening, and reflecting on the land and seascape, a deeper understanding of place is formed, and with it a vocabulary of marks and materials. Work emerges through gathering, gentle transformation, reflection and collaboration, a co-making in place with human, non-human and more-than human occupants, weather and water; tools and flame – to land, in place, with the wearer/viewer.

These works hold the lines and traces of shore and land, at once part of the stories of the place of before and the place of now, underpinned by the tensions and complexities of contemporary Australia. Stories shared here through the language of making.

The artist Melinda Young is a craftsperson who lives and works on Dharawal Country in the Illawarra region of NSW. Her research-based practice spans jewellery, objects and textiles, exploring place and materiality. Exhibiting extensively in Australia and internationally since 1997, her work is held in public collections and included in numerous publications. She is currently an Associate Lecturer at UNSW School of Art & Design (Faculty of Arts Design and Architecture) and undertaking a PhD in Human Geography at the University of Wollongong.