Reclaim the Void was born from Ngalia elders in Leonora, Western Australia, expressing pain and grief at ‘those gaping mining holes left all over our country’. The vision is to create a huge ‘dot’ artwork to lay on land affected by mining, created from around 4,000 hand-woven rugs made from discarded fabric by people from around Australia and beyond. The finished artwork will express the story of sacred country.

Country is alive with story, song, dance, law, tjukurrpa. When we wound country, we wound ourselves, and end up with a scarred physical and cultural landscape.

Reclaim the Void sits at the meeting place of land art, contemporary textiles, community, story and culture. It expresses a shared desire for conciliation and is the collaborative recognition of country as alive, vulnerable and sacred.

We needed a lot of rugs to create the artwork. We now have very close to 4,000, contributed from communities all over Australia, and beyond.

Reclaim the Void is also about stories. We are developing an interactive digital ‘rugalogue’ of the final artwork, with the stories that the maker(s) share to accompany their rugs. This will include the tapestry of stories of all the people who have contributed, and will be a story in its own right, of our collective love, respect, and wish to care for country.

It’s the story, healing and symbolic reclaiming, and the acknowledgement of careless over-consumption, that is central to Reclaim the Void. We are having a conversation about caring for country, and honouring its custodians, and inviting everyone to be part of that through modest, small-scale acts, that collectively create something special.

The final artwork will be brought to life on the country for which it was created - a symbol of hope and healing.