Wear The Wild: The Exhibition

Wear the Wild is a community arts project inspired by the endangered flora and fauna of the Darebin Parklands and Darebin Creek, creating fabulous wearable art and costumes made from recycled and repurposed materials collected from the local area.

Luna and Sarah are established wearable artists and costume designers living and working on Wurundjeri land right here in Preston. They have created a beautiful body of work inspired by their time spent walking through the Darebin Grasslands a place of sanctuary and inspiration during the past year of lockdown. The artists' knowledge and awareness of this area increased as they learned more about the remnant vegetation and history of the area, and respect the work that is being done to preserve and cultivate the Indigenous and remnant flora and fauna within the parklands, grasslands and creek. Thank you to local ecological artist Aviva Reed for her support and guidance in this area.

Luna and Sarah were able to host two live wearable art workshops with the young people who attend the Rainbow Lounge on Tuesdays at The Hub, Darebin’s youth space at Northland shopping centre. Unfortunately due to lockdown these workshops were moved to digital sessions.

The artists initial plan to share their knowledge and mentor the Rainbow Lounge young people took many twists and turns to continue facilitating creative workshops despite the setbacks of lockdown. The project went from a parade, to a photographic exhibition, to a window display and finally became a digital costume design challenge. These changes occurred with each lockdown setback to enable Covid safe protocols. As artists they had to be ready to respond and reorganise quickly. Sarah and Luna are so grateful for all the support and guidance we received from Joseph, Seth and Patrick at the Hub.

The final wearable artworks were made from found and recycled materials collected in the Darebin area. Lockdown added an extra element of truly needing to draw upon what they had already collected pre lockdown, or draw on their collection of materials from the artists personal studios. Many of the materials were collected from within the Darebin parklands- especially the mountain dew plastic bottles. Darebin hard rubbish collection provided a treasure trove of materials that were saved from going into landfill, including plastic toy balls, discarded inflatables, plastic gel sheets, a collection of swimming caps, a roll of vintage fabric and many other materials.

Many different techniques were used in the making of these wearable pieces. Traditional techniques such as sewing, hand dying, and millinery were used and unconventional and experimental techniques such as sculptural plastic formations with recycled materials.

The collection of costume designs and drawings were submitted by local young people as part of the costume design challenge, where the artists invited young people to submit a nature inspired costume design as part of the project.