Hero: Make Your Own Trophy with Olga Cironis

What deserves to be celebrated?

Join artist Olga Cironis for a hands-on creative workshop exploring identity, belonging and the stories we carry with us.

Beginning with a gold trophy, participants will use fabric, thread, wrapping and stitching to transform this familiar symbol of achievement into a unique sculptural work with a meaning of their own.

Olga will introduce her artistic practice and share examples of her work before demonstrating techniques for covering and stitching three-dimensional forms. She will then guide participants as they create their own sculpture to take home.

Drawing on themes within Olga’s practice and her exhibition Mother Island, this workshop offers a playful and thoughtful opportunity to explore ideas of identity, belonging, memory and place through making.

This workshop is suitable for participants who are competent in basic hand sewing.

TICKETS:

$55 ticket price includes all materials as well as coffee, tea and biscuits.

Places are limited to 9 participants – so make sure to book to secure your spot!

WHAT TO BRING:

Please bring your own lunch as the workshop will include a half hour lunch break. Fridge, microwave and hot water are available for participant use on site.

Fabric and materials will be provided, but participants are also invited to bring a piece of fabric that holds personal significance, perhaps connected to a person, place, memory or experience. Through this process, each trophy becomes something entirely individual, shaped by the materials and stories we choose to carry with us.

FACILITATOR BIO: Olga Cironis creates work which contains layers of research, collected stories, muted voices and cultural heritage. Her work is psychologically loaded with meaning, provoking and seducing the viewer, navigating them through history and inviting them to question our social and environmental connections.

VISITING LWAG

See Mother Island at LWAG 11am – 4pm Tuesday – Saturday from 17 October – 5 December.

Mother Island brings together three artists with distinct artistic practices who share a deep engagement with storytelling through material. Across sculpture, installation and textile works, the artists examine the bonds that connect us to people, places and histories, while reflecting on the ways culture, memory and care are passed between generations. The exhibition proposes the idea of the "mother island" as a site of origin, belonging and protection, but also a space from which we must sometimes depart to define our own identities.

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We acknowledge we are situated on Noongar land. We pay our respects to the traditional owners of the lands on which we live and work across Western Australia and Australia.

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View all related events to the exhibitions at uwa.edu.au/lwag/Events

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Image credit: Olga Cironis with her work Her gaze was a falling tree, 2026, Mother Island exhibition, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 2026. Photographer: Suzie Gravestock, Ilkka K Photography