Found Plastic Jewellery Workshop with Mel Young

Inspired by the mermaids in Wollongong Art Gallery’s current exhibition, Karla Dickens: Rise and Fall, this workshop engages with unnatural treasures collected and saved from polluting the natural environment.

Make exquisite wearable art with beach debris and plastic bags with local artist, Mel Young. Mel will lead a workshop on making jewellery from plastics found on the beach, in the ocean and saved from landfill.

You will learn a range of simple jewellery making techniques in including simple stitching, stringing and cordage which are then applied to your gathered materials to create beautiful wearable objects for the body. The processes of hand-making cordage (or string) using a hand-twisting technique is a deceptively simple process with infinite possibilities! Cordage can be used in combination with found materials to make jewellery such as a necklaces, bracelets, earrings or brooches.

Bring your own washed plastic beach debris, clean recycled plastics and clean plastic bags; jewellery findings and tools will be provided. Experience is not required for this workshop, just your enthusiasm!

Bookings are essential via Eventbrite.

About Melinda Young

Melinda Young lives and works on Dharawal Country. Her research-based practice spans jewellery and intimately scaled textiles reflecting on experiences of being in and understanding place, underpinned by the complexities of place-based making in contemporary Australia. She is interested in materiality - the traces of human and non-human interactions left behind on the body and the land.

Exhibiting extensively in Australia and internationally since 1997, her work is held in public collections and included in numerous publications. Melinda has spent the past 25 years working within the contemporary craft and design field as an educator, curator, gallery manager and writer. She has a Master of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts and is currently undertaking a cross-disciplinary PhD in Human Geography and Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong.