It has been such a pleasure to bring ‘Rich and Rare’ west to Albany Town Hall Gallery, after developing much of the work during a residency at Albany’s Vancouver Arts Centre in 2024.
Come and explore the history, near disappearance and restoration of Australia’s native flat oyster reefs. The species has a particularly strong connection to Kinjarling/Albany, with the once-abundant oyster reefs intrinsic to the history and identity of Oyster Harbour.
With machine-embroidered lace, video installation and photography I have explored the story of Ostrea angasi, the native flat oyster once found in reefs along Australia’ southern coastline. After encountering old Ostrea angasi shells near Eden, New South Wales, my investigation took me from Yuin Country on the NSW south coast to north-eastern Lutruwita/Tasmania and finally in 2024 to Oyster Harbour in Kinjarling/Albany.
At the centre of Rich and Rare is an ethereal piece of machine-embroidered lace that reflects the oyster reef’s fragility, delicacy and now fragmented distribution. This work also grapples with our collective memory - and forgetting - of lost or disappearing environmental features like these.
This time, the show includes ‘Reef Knot’, a work that visitors can contribute to, by binding their message of hope to a shell (from farmed flat and rock oysters) and adding it to a collective reef.
Rich and Rare is on until Saturday 3 October 2026, and I will be in the gallery next Saturday 26 September, coinciding with the 2026 Southern Art and Craft Trail. Come in and have a look and a chat!