The sixth workshop was held at Marrawah on the West Coast in May 2008 and was the first to be facilitated by the women who had previously been involved in the tayenebe project.

The women who attended were, Patsy Cameron, Leonie Dickson, Gina Green, Vicki maikutena Matson-Green, Colleen Mundy, Verna Nichols and Nannette Shaw. Julie Gough (the newly appointed tayenebe curator), George Serras (photographer, National Museum of Australia) and Lola Greeno also attended.

Looking toward the Woolnorth wind turbines and beyond to Cape Grim, the setting provided the ideal landscape background for the images George captured during the workshop.

A key aim for this workshop was to create new pieces from bull kelp that washed up in a range of colours on the local beach. This workshop also provided a golden opportunity for Aboriginal women to visit the petroglyphs at Sundown Point and pay respects to their Ancestors in that land.

The group gathered Juncus pallidus, Diplarrena moraea and the wider leaf Diplarrena latifolia. The Diplarrena growing near Arthur River seemed to be scattered among the low growing shrubs, protected from the strong west-coast winds. It has short, wide, strong leaves and is a different species to the East Coast variety.

The Marrawah workshop saw women experimenting with the new shapes, colours and textures of the bull kelp. The range of work created was very different to previous workshops with most working individually.

‘And when tayenebe commenced it inspired me. The need was there for women to get together and share their ideas and techniques, and develop techniques because we all started off with not very much knowledge about

how to commence our work. We all sort of knew the stitch, we knew the weave, we knew it was that unique weave to Tasmania, but it was the starting off and the adding in the warps. And I think that’s what’s been important, that sharing of all the techniques and then searching out collecting places.’

Patsy Cameron , November, May 2008

Photographer: George Serras, NMA