Banana fibre processing workshop / Helle Jorgensen
1pm, 17th February, 2024
Workshop: 1-3pm, Saturday 17 February 2024
Helle Jorgensen lives in the Northern Rivers Region of NSW where Banana is an abundant agricultural crop. Although grown for its fruit, it’s also possible to use the trunk for basketry and cordage. This workshop will show participants how to harvest and process the banana plant, whilst also looking at foraged local plants to make cordage suitable for basketry materials and techniques.
This workshop coincides with Charlotte Haywood’s collaborative exhibition MNEMONIC VEGETABLES, which helps us ‘remember’ our connection to the living plant world, Mother Earth and each other. This exhibition combines botanical works, installation, multi-channel video & community exchanges which respond to the potent site of the Lock-Up and Muloobinba/Newcastle as the world’s largest coal port and a place of environmental activism.
Please Bring: Old clothes, covered shoes, rubber gloves, old towel, bucket and scissors/secateurs.
*If you have access please feel welcome to bring banana trunk or local foraged plants such as; Iris, Red hot poker, Bullrush, Rushes and sedges, Corn husks, NZ Flax, Lomandra, Dianella or Watsonia (preferably dry them flat before the workshop or they can be brought green).
About Helle Jorgensen
Helle Jorgensen is a Northern NSW artist, with a background in Biology and Horticulture. Her artistic process is primarily based on investigating materials and techniques. In 2017 she had a residency in a small village in Northern Okinawa, Japan, where she expanded her knowledge in banana fibre processing and its use.
