Rewild | 2025 Artists-in-Residence Exhibition

Exhibition Statement

Rewild | Artists-in-Residence Exhibition presents new work by artists Michele Grimston and Hannah McKellar, developed through the 2025 Craft + Design Canberra Artist-in-Residence program at Cinerea Cottage, located within Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. The residency combines time immersed in the landscape with a dedicated research component undertaken in partnership with the National Zoo and Aquarium. 

Framed by the theme of Rewilding, the program invited Michele and Hannah to consider ecological restoration and shifting relationships between humans and the natural world. Through the residency’s research component with the National Zoo and Aquarium, the artists went behind the scenes to observe conservation practices and engage with rewilding as a progressive approach to conservation, one that enables natural processes to repair ecosystems and restore wilder, more biodiverse habitats. 

As part of the exhibition launch, Hannah McKellar and Michele Grimston will join Exhibitions Coordinator Stacy Jewell in conversation, reflecting on their residency experiences.  This talk offers a rare insight into the processes, challenges, and reflections that inform each artist’s practice, highlighting how attentiveness and responsiveness have shaped the creation of their work. 

Artist Statements

For Michele Grimston, the residency period at Tidbinbilla was an opportunity to ‘rewild’ her relationship to place and deepen her connection to the local landscape. Through cyclical and meditative practices that move between movement and stillness (walking, cycling, stitching, drawing and sitting) she captured layers of sensory and emotional impressions that accumulated over time. She then layers multiple moments and experiences of place with the use of textiles, creating richness and depth through sustained attentiveness. This process reflects Michele’s commitment to reorienting her relationship to Country through listening, patience and attunement. 

Hannah McKellar approaches rewilding through the lens of mapping. Using hand-embroidered sculptures, watercolour paintings, ink drawings and eucalyptus transfers she explores alternative ways of representing place. Drawing from photographs and GPS coordinates collected while exploring Tidbinbilla, Hannah reinterprets conventional cartography through tactile and process-driven techniques. Inspired by Tidbinbilla’s use of rewilding she seeks to ‘rewild’ the act of mapping itself by moving beyond rigid colonial systems of representation toward a more sensory and respectful engagement with Country. 

Together, the works produced during this residency reflect different approaches to attentiveness, observation and care. Through their distinct practices Michele and Hannah consider how artistic processes can mirror ecological ones that are slow, layered and responsive inviting audiences to reconsider how we see, map and relate to the environments we inhabit. 

Images courtesy of Craft + Design Canberra | Photography: 5 Foot Photography