“Processing Plant”
Anna Dunnill and Jess Cockerill
2 July → 31 July 2022
Humans have been making string and thread for over 35,000 years. Intimately connected to the body, the process of twining together plant or animal fibres forms the basis of jewellery, bags, vessels and clothing.
In Processing Plant, the laborious trajectory from plant to cloth is front and centre. To produce thread, artist Anna Dunnill turns to an unusual hyperlocal source of fibre: an invasive plant called Araujia sericifera, or moth vine, that grows freely in alleyways and along train lines throughout Melbourne. This video work, directed by Jess Cockerill, shows the entanglement of process and end product, complicating our understanding of a noxious weed.
This project is supported by the City of Yarra.
Anna Dunnill is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist and writer, whose current studio research explores prayer and ritual through textile processes. She has a Master of Fine Art (Visual Art) from the Victorian College of the Arts, and has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, and Kansas City (Missouri, USA). Anna is an editor of Art Guide Australia and has also been published in UN magazine, Runway, Art + Australia online and Vault among others. She is one half of collaborative duo Snapcat.
Jess Cockerill is a multimedia artist and writer based in Naarm (Melbourne) whose works explore the ecstasy and tension of interspecies connections. Jess’s background in ecology, journalism and digital media is reflected in their interdisciplinary approach to creative practice, which spans video, animation, drawing, printmaking, installation, writing and design.