the ribbons that bind us
Ahead of this weekend’s Yours and Owls Metropolis Locale, we talked to participating artist and disability support worker, Eloise Cleary, about her two projects and the ideas behind them.
Interview Kirra Davey @k.m.d__
Tell us about your background - when did you decide you wanted to be an artist?
I don’t know if it’s ever a decision I’ve made. I grew up in a very kind of free-range, creative, hobby farm. I was given a lot of creative freedom as a child. I had a lot of like materials of different things at my disposal to play with and to problem solve with, so I don’t know if I was raised to be one or if I decided so much. I can’t really tell but I love to create and I love to involve other people when I create.
Tell us about your involvement with Yours and Owls’ 2023 Metropolis Locale?
I’ve been a part of Yours and Owls creatively since about 2016 - they’re incredible to work for. I’m doing two separate projects with them this year. One is with my work with the people I support with The Disability Trust. And the second is a council run project that I ran for eight weeks with community members through the Dapto Library. We worked over those weeks to create a large art installation, Talking With Ribbon.
We incorporated last year’s Yours and Owls’ wristbands as the materials to make the Talking With Ribbon artwork, so we thought it would be a good idea to have it displayed at the Festival before it is permanently installed at Dapto Library.
What inspired the art installation?
Yours and Owls gave me the wristbands - these incredible, bright coloured fabric ribbons. And then it was just playing around with them. It just felt very natural to plait them all together. As I was working with a group of people, I thought “these are great to plait, we need to make that into something bigger.” And it all just finally flowed into the final idea.
What are you excited for most about Metropolis Locale?
Having people are coming to see the work at the Festival - for a lot of them it is their first festival or something is a bit out of their comfort zone maybe. So I’m really looking to have people involved and that normally wouldn’t go to something like this.
I know that Yours and Owls is a really great environment for first-time comers to this sort of thing. It’s not your typical festival. It’s incredibly inclusive. Lots of safe spaces. Lots of understanding of different people and how different people enjoy things. So, I think that’s what I’m looking forward to the most.
Yeah, the people that actually created the works coming to see themselves and seeing all their hard work showed off. I think that’s what I’m looking forward to this year.
What did you find the most exciting or the best part of working with the local members of community with Talking With Ribbons?
They’re incredibly open to any ideas that I want to try! There’s a lot of freedom with the Locale. And there has been each year. They’ve got the doors open to the artists and they’re really supportive. Anything that you wanna try and endeavour, they’ll help, in any way they can, to make your vision kind of come to life.
And that goes for The Disability Trust who I work for. They’ve given me that same freedom. Each of them - Locale, Disability Trust, the council - have given me the reigns and said ‘yep, that sounds great’. They are all on the same page with how supportive they’ve been and open to ideas. So that’s probably been the best part about it. I haven’t heard any no’s.
What do you have coming up? Any other upcoming events or exhibitions?
To continue doing what I’m doing. I’m really blown away by the council, especially in the last few years. I don’t know if it’s a reaction to Covid, wanting to like you know just cheer people up or you know after everything that’s happened or if it’s like there’s just so many opportunities and grants, and reaching out to artists.
I’m going to be curating an exhibition for the clients that I work with through the Disability Trust. It’s called A Hundred Prints and Origins. It will be held at the Bad News Gallery in March next year. So once this Yours and Owls project’s done, we’ll get started on that. And I’m hoping to run a solo exhibition next year as well with my personal work so they’re probably the next two things on the agenda.
Check out Eloise Cleary’s work at Metropolis Locale on 14 & 15 October or follow @eloise_cleary on Instagram