Occupying Space

Overview

This exhibition by Helen Heslop consists of a series of quilt and collage works created from photographs taken of landscapes in the South Coast of NSW.

Helen Heslop says:

"I spent time on Yuin Country as part of ANU's Sharing Stories community program in 2025/26. Time spent on country, listening to stories from local elders and artists, was a gift: giving me time to understand more deeply indigenous thinking and culture, intergenerational trauma and steps to healing. It helped me start to unravel my own place in the Australian context: as an immigrant from a former colonial country in Africa and as a woman from a long line of ancestors engaged in colonialism. Our șite-based investigations — of the Bundian Way walking track, Severs Beach and the Davidson Whaling Station — shed light on the indigenous and colonial history, land use and, under the surface, the trauma inflicted by colonial enterprise."

Ideas of dispossession, perspective, exploitation and enduring colonial structures are explored using a reparative aesthetic, to enable the viewer to walk gently together through these stories. Quilts, as a medium, symbolise safety, comfort and security. Heslop's artworks tap into the long history of radical textiles, where women's art making has been deeply associated with social change, activism and truth-telling.