Join us for a hands-on exploration of text and texture with Darebin Art Prize finalist Abbra Kotlarczyk.
Together we will look at examples of how specific textures (surfaces/networks/structures) are used to inform the transmission of words and their possible meanings. We will then turn our hands over to forms of surface treatment, exploring how embossing, hole and letter punch, frottage and squeeze paper techniques can function to extend the application of paper as a conveyor of poetic and political messaging.
Participants are encouraged to bring any text/s in order to condense a word or a line as the subject and material for an intended artwork. This could be anything from a single word to a larger body of text (their own or someone else’s). Please note: languages and language systems other than English and/or made for humans are encouraged, where the participant holds some knowledge about what they are bringing along.
In addition, participants are welcome to bring any objects they would like to use for frottage (rubbings) or embossing (coins/seed pods/jewellery etc.).
Please also note: components of this workshop may be a little noisy, specifically around use of hammer and hole/letter punches. If you have sound sensitivities, please consider bringing a pair of earmuffs/noise cancelling headphones/earbuds.
Date
Saturday 23 May | 12:00pm – 2:30pm
Ages
Suitable for adults 18+
Cost
General admission: $20+ booking fee
Blaktix: $10 + booking fee
About the Facilitator
Abbra Kotlarczyk is a poet and visual artist of Polish and Irish descent living on Wurundjeri Country. Her expanded drawing practice is grounded in the foundation of paper: a medium & ideological substrate that she uses to interrogate questions of power, memory, story and inter-subjectivity. Her work is interested in queering normative stratifications of social & ecological relations that foreground human- and blood-lineages, often subverting conceptions of gender- & bio-logics. She has facilitated workshops and masterclasses in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, including at KINGS Artist Run, Gasworks and Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).
After the workshop, see Abbra’s artwork in the Darebin Art Prize 2026 showing at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre until Saturday 20 June 2026.
To plan your visit and for more information please click here.
Image credit: Abbra Kotlarczyk, Love Triage I (detail). Courtesy the artist.
For more information click here
