Five days out from the 2023 Australian National University School of Art Grad Show. Over the past year, I have been working on two artworks centered around the ways anxiety can drive textile work to shift forms. Having an extensive personal history of mental and chronic illness, I aimed to channel anxiety through materiality in the hopes of augmenting treatment and redirecting and/or reconceptualising my own precarious psychology.
LEVO is named after the Latin word meaning to raise or relieve. From my hand-embroidered stream-of-conscious thoughts and observations to soldering, burning, sewing and the coloring of unwanted bedsheets and material with ink and natural dye, LEVO has become a vessel for the auditing and articulation of my anxious experience.
I began this series to test and expand my capacity for artistic making. In undertaking this immersive personal and multidisciplinary practice, my investigations have been met with three key methods to examine and shift my anxiety – occupation, expression and utilization. Over the course of this practice-led research, I have come to view LEVO as a mapping of unease, distress and worriment. However, they have also become a device through which I can experience vivid productivity, momentum, diversion, memory and catharsis.
LEVO is on show from the 2nd of December (opening night is at 6 pm on the 1st) at the ANU School of Art and Design.
Megan Kennedy 