Join Selenda de Carvalho and Katie West in discussion for the second episode of our second series of Conversations with the Assembly.

Selena de Carvalho (PhD) is an inter-disciplinary artist, designer, maker and risk taker of settler, refugee and migrant heritage based in lutruwrita/Tasmania- ‘Australia’. Selena purposefully connects creativity in a (post) activist context amplifying the ecological imagination through practicing relational ethos. Selena views her creative work as a cultural response – ability. Throughout this practice she seeks out materials and environments that have weathered various forms of frontline disturbance, with-nessing, witnessing and interpreting global warming and its local affects.

Katie West is an artist and Yindjibarndi woman based in Noongar Ballardong country, working in installation, textiles and social practice. The process and notion of naturally dyeing fabric underpin her practice–the rhythm of walking, gathering, bundling, boiling up water and infusing materials with plant matter. Using found and naturally dyed textiles, video, and sound, Katie creates installations, textile pieces, and happenings that invite attention to the ways we weave our stories, places, histories, and futures.

Katie West: I guess that the capitalist system that we work in, you do feel pushed to get things done quickly. Living where we live now has helped this too but I’ve also realised that maintaining that sense of slowness in the process is really important for myself and my own mental health but also for the work too. That’s where the work comes from. That’s the value in it and that’s the thing to cultivate and protect from here on out.