Join artists’ Minka Gillian, Alexi Freeman as they discuss their work in the Speculative Materialism exhibition at Craft + Design Canberra. The exhibition Speculative Materialism: Making for the Future engages with the complexities of being a material maker in a world where mass consumption and contemporary materiality plagues the health of the planet.

Artists’ Biographies

Minka Gillian

Minka Gillian is an Australian/Frisian artist, born in Canberra, raised in Tasmania. Primarily working with recycled materials, Gillian’s work is characterised by biomorphic installations using traditional domestic techniques, such as weaving, netting and crochet. She is interested in nature, the body and transforming the mundane into something intriguing and beautiful.

Alexi Freeman

Alexi Freeman is a Naarm-based artist known for pushing creative practice boundaries, underpinned by eco-design principles and interdisciplinary collaborations. Freeman's oeuvre blends artisanal craftsmanship with speculative materials resulting in wearable artefacts, architectural jewellery and sustainability research.

Halie Rubenis

Halie Rubenis has studied art, design, object and jewellery at Melbourne Polytechnic, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Australian National University. Aside from having projects featured in many curated national exhibitions, Halie has also worked across the commercial and non-profit art and design sectors in business, strategic management and creative direction.

Narelle White

An early career artist, Narelle embraces ceramic labour as a field of enquiry and engages her materials as wilfull co-conspirators. Invoking a playful and alluring blend of biomorphic and geologic references, her works gesture towards the co-constitutive nature of people, mythos and place. Inspired by a lineage of women artists with distinctive material signatures, Narelle is alive to the feminist and ecological implications of rethinking our relationships with matter.

Image | Minka Gillian | Mind Garden 2024 | courtesy of the artist