Presented as part of Hatched: National Graduate Show 2024, the Hatched artist-in-residence program offered a month-long residency to one WA-based and one interstate artist. This opportunity provided time and space for the artists to embark on new projects and be a part of PICA’s creative community.  

Hatched Open Studios 2024 invited audiences to go behind the scenes of PICA’s artists-in-residence program. In conversation with Lia McKnight, John Curtin Gallery Curator, Kasia Kolikow and Frances Malcolmson discussed their practices, the outcomes of their residency and their experience exhibiting in Hatched 2024. 

[Brent Harrison – Hatched Curatorial Fellow 2023–2024]  Hello everyone, thank you for coming to the Hatched Open Studio tonight. There’s a great crowd and there will be a great discussion between Kasia Kolikow and Frances Malcolmson about their residency. My name is Brent Harrison and I’m the Hatched Curatorial Fellow at PICA. I’ve had the privilege of working with Kasia and Frances during Hatched 2024 . I’d like to begin by acknowledging that at PICA we recognise that we are situated within the unceded lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We pay our respects and offer our gratitude to Elders past and present, and to those emerging leaders in the community. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of their care and continued connection to culture, community and Country. Always was, always will be. As part of Hatched, we offer month-long residencies to one interstate artist and one local artist. The residency provides an opportunity to further their practice and become immersed within PICA and the community here. Tonight we are joined by Kasia Kolikow who studied at North Metropolitan TAFE here in Perth.During Kasia’s residency she has developed small objects and soft sculpture that relate to home and domesticity. We also have Frances Malcolmson who studied at University of Tasmania in Hobart. Frances has been using drawing and frottage mediums to represent Australian endemic wildflowers and other non-endemic wild species.

Both Kasia and Francis will be in conversation with Lia McKnight. Lia is an artist and curator based in Walyalup/Fremantle. Within both practices her research seeks to speculate on the shifting parameters of identity and context. Lia graduated from Edith Cowan University with a BA Visual Arts in 1997. She began a Master of Arts Administration at COFA, UNSW in 2002, before heading back to WA in 2003 to start a family. She completed a Master of Arts, Cultural Heritage at Curtin University in 2005 and worked as an Independent Curator before joining the John Curtin Gallery where she currently works as a Curator. In her art practice, themes of transformation, memory and trauma intertwine with observations of the natural world. Her work is held in private and public collections including Murdoch University, Curtin University, City of Perth and City of Joondalup.

[Lia McKnight] Thanks Brent. I thought we could start tonight by speaking to the works that are presented as part of Hatched.  What was evident to me when speaking to both of you last week is that these works have really emerged through extended periods of research. There’s a whole history of the material investigation and thinking and making that’s informed these works. Interestingly, both of your graduate bodies of works were informed by encounters with particular urban sites, though you each ran that in quite different trajectories. If we could start with you, Frances, could you tell us a bit about the specific site that you were working with and how that informed the development of the work, both conceptually and materially. As you described to me, it looks at quite a contentious site in the city of Hobart.

[Frances Malcolmson] I was interested in investigating urban nature and what nature does when it’s left to its own devices. I found a site which is in an adjourning suburb that had an abundance of species just growing. There were 10 different species I found there that I worked with. The site is contentious and also now overlooked – it was sold by the Council in 2017 to an overseas developer for a waterfront hotel development, which was heavily protested. That has stalled,so the council is trying to buy the land back and the developers are refusing.They’re taking it to the state government to say it’s a project of significance, which the state government declined. It’s an anomaly to its surroundings. There’s a waterfront arc of land, which is where the hotel was to go. There’s part of an extensive waterfront bike track which in Hobart is heavily used by walkers and joggers. And then there’s a pothole row that people drive across to park for the Yacht Club. You’ve got views to Kunanyi/Mount Wellington, you’ve got views of the river. It’s very sublime, in a way. You’ve got coffee shops to the left, you’ve got urban plantings and suburbia to the right, and you’ve got a road and then suburbia above. I worked with an embankment of plants which is about 70 metres long by about four metres high.

[LM] You collected plants that were growing at that site and had them tested, can you talk about what you found?

[FM] I found 10 species and took them to the herbarium in Hobart where they identified them. They identified them formally in terms of species, the family they belong to, their genus and their species epithet. Genus is a type within the family, species epithet is actually named after whoever found them. This is where I learned about specimen sheets. I started by pressing plants, but they looked a bit sad, so I moved into printmaking from there.

[LM] You really started thinking about this notion of the weed, and what that says about value and how we encounter nature. Can you talk a little bit about that, how that informed the concepts behind the work?

[KK] I’ve always been very drawn to vintage furniture, heritage houses because it’s something that I am pretty disconnected from. My parents migrated to Australia in the 1980s, with pretty much nothing, they’re just buying all their things. I don’t really have that generational inherited furniture, that’s all in Poland and I’m just disconnected from it, so I just have this attraction to it. This dresser was one I found at the TAFE. It had been used for something else and was abandoned, and I could just see it moving from the foyer area to an outdoor corridor. I was like – OK, this is gonna come with me now.

[LM] You were also thinking about things around housing crisis.Can you tell us a bit more about that?

[KK] I was thinking about the housing crisis, the suburban dream, and the fact that it’s unlikely that I might be buying a house anytime soon in the suburb that I live in. I have been lucky enough to rent there for the past eight years. We are blessed with a landlord who doesn’t increase the rent– sorry to everyone else’s experiences! It was just something that I was thinking about,I would love to live and own in this area, but people my age are having to buy  in places in the fringes. We visited a place where I used to go camping growing up, and now it’s just like an outer development suburb of Perth, and it’s just so upsetting to see what’s happened.

[LM] Both of your graduate bodies of work were developed through a great deal of material experimentation and play. I thought it’d be great to talk about the process and how that evolved over time.

[FM] All of my graduate work was through monoprinting and each print is done individually. I started with the herbarium sheet by inking up a plate, putting the weeds out and printing from it. From that I went to taking them away and printing what was left on the plate so that created a different effect, that was a ghost print. I also took the weeds and put them on a new plate,so the inside would face the paper and that created an impression like a drawing. Which each of the ten species I did those three different versions as an analysis and then from there I started playing with it. I started layering them into another body of work where I worked with the ghost prints and then offset printed across. These ones that you see here were actually initially just a means to get to the other print, so I had the black backgrounds which weren’t as black as I wanted them to be, so I thought, well what happens if I print over?One day I printed over, and then I got to that effect. At the same time, I was researching the site, learning more about its past, but also that the weeds located there are temporary, because it’s marked at some stage for beautification, attractive for attention of the embankment, is the wording. I wanted this body of work to show the temporality and their strength, but also their fragility. I was very influenced by an artist called the Anais Tonder who went into the Chernobyl site and did photograms directly from plants that were marked by radiation. She’s got a series of those that are installed in a lead light box that are very beautiful. But the beauty in them is in the damage of the radiation that can be seen in the paper.

[LM] You’re talking about quite a similar aesthetic in many ways as to what we see here, including the palette, which is quite pared back. Can you talk about your choices with colour and some of the staining that’s happened?

[FM] When I was printing I was trying to shift the blacks so they were just a heavy black. So I did three different mixtures just with the primary colours, so I would mix some red into the black with some prints, yellow into black with some, and blue into black with some. I was actually using them in the other body of works, when I printed them they look like they were further back so I could bring the layers forward. But because I printed twice, it’s really just shifted all the tonalities and added to the discomfort. The other thing that’s quite important is that it’s not a usual activity to go with secateurs and gardening gloves to collect weeds, especially  in quite a public space. I would walk along the front of the site and look up to it, and I wanted to really put the viewer in that position, so I’ve replicated that experience.

[LM] I was going to ask you about scale actually. Can you talk about that?

[FM] For the paper, I got the biggest size I could buy in sheets and then I halved it vertically because I wanted to emphasise looking up through that.  I’ve also abutted them to create the scale. I’m creating the height scale, but also creating the width scale.

[LM] Directly using those weeds and the staining that comes through with some of them really speaks to that idea of presence and absence, which is quite beautiful. Is that something that you were seeking in the work?

[FM] I think so, but also layers of time, like almost the past, but it’s now. But what’s the future? The other thing is that printing with weeds is temperamental, so if they were too new, they would splat. If I’d had them too long, they would dry out and not respond. I have to select for the whole process and be very careful, respectful and responsive to how they were.

[LM] Did you have a few series going at once?

[FM] Yes, but the series came in, right towards the end, process-wise, because of what happened about the site. It almost tripped me up because when I started doing them, first they worked really well and then it went haywire, so I couldn’t get the tonalities dark enough and I actually started doing four separate changes in how I was printing. I got the last of them done the Sunday before everything had to be up on the Wednesday!

[LM] Student life! You had three series of works. Is that right? Each of them were displayed with archival boxes which kind of really brings in this idea of the museum, which is quite interesting when we’re talking about weeds. Can you talk about the concepts behind that?

[FM] Yeah, the three series I talked about at the start, with the three different interpretations of each weed. There were ten prints for each, and I made clamshell boxes that you open up and are lined in black, and so then viewers can come and move the prints from one side to the other and go through them. They were displayed very formally in a row of three,and it was on a dark bench that was elevated so that people standing in front could access it. Here I’m questioning values, and it’s also referencing the herbarium systems and museum systems.

[LM] We might be putting you on the spot here. Were you thinking about the issues around colonisation and things like that as well, particularly working with weeds?

[FM] I was definitely thinking about adaptive nature and adaptive nature has come very heavily from colonisation. Although it wasn’t central to my exegesis,  damage and adaptation is certainly from colonisation.

[LM] Thanks, Frances. Kasia, we had long chats about labour-intensive processes and knitting machines and your background in fashion and textiles. Can you talk about the process of making this work?

[KK] So this work was obviously very time-consuming and kind of seems a bit like impossible to try to tackle everything at once. It’s definitely a step-by-step approach. I made the first draw and just replaced the original drawer of the dresser. That one I made  out of found fabrics, I went to the op shop and got soft cozy scarves, cut them up, stitched them together. But using woven fabric which, in sewing, it’s going to fray a lot, it’s not the easiest for that. Also considering, it’s not great to be cutting up big scarves that could be perfectly used by someone who needs them. I decided to start playing with the knitting machine for that reason, to avoid using something that could be used for something else and to have some control over what happens. I could custom make the shapes for the dresser, which means when I’m stitching it together, everything’s gonna be seamless. There will be no frayed edges, each piece is custom made. I just kept going step by step, I did three drawers, then I did the mirror.  I found this yarn which I really liked the effect of to replicate the mirror, and I used plastic boning for corsetry to make the shape of it, which I heated to form the shape of the mirror. Then I just did that final push to do the whole framework of it as well.

[LM] People think with a knitting machine you can just program it and press a button,but it’s not like that at all, is it? Emma Buswell speaking to her work at JCG, was talking about it more being like a loom. You’ve got a drawing in your studio basically where you’ve mapped out the mirror. Can you talk us through step by step because I find it quite fascinating. I think it’s good for people to know how long this takes, as it’s an incredibly labour-intensive process.

[KK] Definitely, there are so many steps just in the process that people can’t even see. For example, if I’ve got a patterned fabric, I have to knit up a tension swatch. Even if it’s plain fabric you need to make a tension swatch which is –

[LM] So that’s to kind of figure out how it’s going to work? The tension?

[KK] It’s to convert how many stitches and rows to centimetres. I did lot of frottage tracing of the original dresser so I knew what shapes, but with the rectangles, you could just have measurements. But trying to convert centimetre measurements to knitted rows and stitches, you have to do this tension swatch, so then you know that’s going to be the right shape. If it’s a rectangle that’s easy enough like I set out the number of needles, I knit the number of rows, cast off and it’s done. But for a curved shape like the mirror, which I didn’t want to knit and then cut that shape, I traced the mirror then I drew a grid over my tracing so I could do centimetre increments. And then you pretty much, think of a pixelated image we have to like gradually take in the little cornices of the curve.  I can tell at what point I have to take away needles and then at what row I have to increase needles again.

[LM] So it’s like counting every single stitch.

[KK] Yes, using a numerical plan that I have in my studio.. That’s like, at the 20th row add two needles, at the 40th row add three needles. Once you’ve done that, you have to let the knitting rest. Then you have to stretch it back to the shape you originally wanted and you have to steam it, so hopefully we’ll set it to get that exact shape. Even steaming takes so long, you’re not meant to touch the iron to the knitting in case you melt it, you just have to hover the iron over it.

[LM] There’s foam creating the form of the soft sculptures, right?

[KK] Yeah.  Sourcing foam was very difficult. The first pieces were from Remida, and it was amazing to have this foam, but it’s a surprise how much can get in there, and I had to keep calling foam stores to finish this work. The draws can keep themselves together, but once you have that full dresser quality, it all kind of flopped together, so the fishing line is what keeps the structure.

[LM] It’s a very welcoming object, I almost want to cuddle it. I think that really ties into your thinking around the work, right?

[KK] Definitely, I wanted something very comforting and safe and not at all like that experience of what’s going on in the housing crisis at the moment. Definitely the dream part of the suburban dream, which it might not be in reality. Also in terms of belonging – I don’t want to focus on negative aspects, I’d rather imagine a safe, comforting world.

[LM] The work is hovering off the ground but in this presentation that’s quite low. I know you’ve had it higher. What’s the thinking around that, of having the work hovering and also the choice of height?

[KK] When it was positioned at a higher level it seemed to be more like it was getting raised up or flying away…

[LM] Like it was a poltergeist or something.

[KK] Yeah, it’s definitely just like it had some kind of spirit inside – this is more subtle so people don’t immediately realise that the original dresser isn’t in there, even though you can see the draws, everything sagging and flopping, but it makes that illusion that makes people then realise, oh, actually it’s not touching the ground. And then they see all these lines which are keeping it up.

[LM] And what motivated you to have it lifted off the floor? What was your thinking around that?

[KK] It is to add that feeling of instability, it’s kind of hanging by a thread. It’s not an uncomfortable uncertainty, but there is something there. I think you get tricked by how soft and lovely everything else is.

[LM] So you guys are at the tail end of a four week residency and isn’t it such a privilege, to have that intensive time in the studio, because it’s short as well. I always find it can be a very productive time and it’s quite a privilege to have that. What’s it been like for you? What’s emerged through your thinking and playing? And I know it’s been a lot of play, without pressure to produce some amazing finished body of work.

[FM] This is my first major residency. I think doing a residency is an opportunity, like studying, I guess, to do something that’s a really major body of work and major push to process. I proposed going into it because I went completely through printmaking before and I was rather attracted to having a studio in the PICA space. I proposed working with frottage and drawing stuff really heavily, doing frottage and then rubbing back and more frottage. And also  I read at the start of the year, Emma Marris, who writes of ‘novel ecosystems’, and asks, now that nature is so damaged – what are we going to do? From there, she proposes those sites in cities, so they are endemic species with cultivated species with whatever else is growing. I proposed a novel ecosystem and to work with weeds that I would find, which I did, and to work with Western Australian wildflowers. What I didn’t realise when I did the proposal was how many wildflowers there are. In Tasmania, we have endemic grass species. We don’t really have wildflowers. I went into the florist and I asked her what wildflowers she had and one she mentioned was the Geraldton waxflower. I did some research and found a site that said it’s actually becoming problematic around Perth. It’s that question of, what grows, how much does it grow? I introduced just one element of that and Kasia kindly took me to a place where we could forage for some. I also found from that people coming to my studio were quite sentimental about it. They would tell me stories that related to people that were important in their lives.

[LM] Kasia, you’ve been getting to know your knitting machine and continuing to make soft sculptures.

[KK] So when I first started the residency I just had my old knitting machine, but I was hoping to get a slightly more advanced one, so in the meantime I just started making a little jewellery box again, again of my drawers, so people want to see the process in miniature form. I was lucky enough to later get in contact with an old knitting lecturer and he had a friend who just happened to be selling a machine of hers, which I bought and immediately moved into the room. It’s from 1986 and it has a little computer. But that computer only has binary entry. It’s still a computer but you don’t have to programme it you just have a little yes or no button and little lights come up for 10 presses. You have to get those 10 correct because once you’re onto the next row and it’s all set there, you can’t really check everything, so I’ve been  getting to know the nature of that machine, learning how to use this little programmer. I was also lucky enough to meet Emma Buswell through PICA, and she was telling me about that technique that she uses, which is called intarsia, and that’s where it’s much more like hand weaving, like tapestry. I decided to challenge myself with that and I have so much more respect for what she does now.

[LM] It’s been evolving over a few years.

[KK] Yeah, that’s it, but you just kind of see the finished product and think, my thing is so small. It took so long, I think I spent 16 hours on it and it’s just this tiny little coloured pattern.

[LM] It’s pretty bonkers. Being part of Hatched, it’s such an amazing opportunity. What’s stood out for you, whether it’s meeting artists or installing your work or different opportunities, anything surprising?

[FM] I think the time spent with other artists was really valuable, with the activities we had over the first few days. I actually let other people install my work, which was wonderful.  Hatched is very important because it  gives emerging artists the level of respect that’s normally given to more established artists and acknowledges that moving from study into the art world is actually quite a brutal experience. It’s very tough, not for the faint-hearted, not for the sensitive and Hatched is just wonderful in that regard, for how well we have been treated.

[LM] Kasia, any reflections on the experience?

[KK] It’s all been amazing. I felt so supported by everyone here at PICA, it was amazing and meeting all the interstate artists and making those connections.

[LM] You got to run some workshops, too.

[KK] I did, I’ve been very busy. I’ve been kind of just saying yes to everything they’ve been throwing at me. I got to do a soft sculpture workshop that was on the Hatched opening weekend, which I was very nervous about but was such a fulfilling experience. We had maybe four kids join in but all of them were just so engaged, like they didn’t leave, like they only left because, like, the workshop ended. T I got to do another little workshop with some Wesley students. They were Year 11 boys, so you don’t think they’re going to be interested in sewing or anything, but lots of them were engaged, even the ones that weren’t that keen, were still engaging with materials like the foam, so that was just really nice to see. I’ve done a couple of media interviews, which was very stressful, but exciting. It was also really nice doing the Minderoo Foundation artist talks for their staff. Again, just talking to people about the work, people that are actually want to know, they’re all interested and just want to chat, it’s been really nice.

[LM] Thank you Frances and Kasia.

Images: Hatched Open Studios, 2024, Photos: Tristan McKenzie.