Today it was my great pleasure to attend the eagerly awaited re-opening of the Onkaparinga Woollen Company as Fabrik Arts + Heritage, with the beautiful industrial buildings that once housed looms and finishing rooms now repurposed with a climate-controlled exhibition space along with studios for artists, an absolutely spiffing shop and sleeping quarters for an artist residence (who will also have access to a lovely kitchen and workspace). A historical collection to remind us of the foundations of this lovely place and a textile-focussed library as well.
Proceedings began with a welcome to Country by Uncle Mickey Kumatpi O'Brien, and introductions by Winnie Pelz (weaver, painter and former director of the Jam Factory when it was actually housed in a repurposed jam factory on Payneham Road, St Peters) followed by Fabrik’s Director, Melinda Rankine, who told the mill’s origin story so beautifully that I asked her if I might share it here on Substack, whereupon she kindly handed me her notes…
“I have two stories I’d like to share : how we got here, and where we’re going.”
The story of Fabrik needs to start with the story of the Mill. For over 120 years the village of Lobethal, in the middle of the Mount Lofty Ranges - an agricultural area - was (home to) a thriving textile manufacturing industry. Blankets. Fabric for clothing - school uniforms, Fletcher Jones - and upholstery - car manufacturing, the Festival Centre curtains - was produced here.
Knowledge of wool processing from fleece to blanket, knowledge of warping, dyeing, weaving, finishing; knowledge of maintaining the machines and the stock flow, was located here in Lobethal. Children knew that when they left school they would have a job here. Generations of families worked at the Mill, discussing method as at the dinner table; technical problems were sorted at the pub on a Friday night. When the Mill closed in early 1994 (when mills across the world closed), the site came into the ownership of the State government and was transferred to Council on the proviso that the site be used to create jobs to replace those that were lost.
So this site became the Adelaide Hills Business and Tourism Centre, a place for start-up enterprises to receive support. Over time businesses became established and Council decided to offer the buildings to businesses to purchase.
This site is still a manufacturing site: there is a microbrewery, winemaker, dried fruit processing, backed goods, cheese makers and fresh juice, as well as an engineering company. It is pretty much a food production hub that has successfully met the remit of job production.
At this point, the wider community became involved, and has remained involved ever since. Community members, while supportive of the move (the sale of buildings), were concerned that if the entire site came under private ownership the community would lose access to an important element of their social and industrial history. So a small group formed, aimed at demonstrating how a cultural hub on the site would work. They held exhibitions, workshops, artist studios; they received grants and collected data to demonstrate how a cultural hub would impact the town. This work was key for Council to further explore the concept and in 2018 Council moved to develop an arts and heritage hub on the site.
Fabrik’s first exhibition was part of the Adelaide Fringe. We were working with a raw site and for all of that year we offered exhibitions, workshops and studios, learning how to work with our buildings and discovering just how many people were up for a drive to the Hills for a creative experience. Then in December 2019, just as we were preparing for an artist market, the Cudlee Creek fire occurred.
The shock for everyone was enormous and distress levels were high as we moved into that Black Summer and then into Covid lockdowns. My experience of the arts is that they are a powerful tool during times of need so during this time we created space for the bushfire recovery centre which was located here in the Blanket Building. We also crafted a program that sought to meet some of the changing needs of the community during the recovery period. This work continued until the site closed for redevelopment in 2022.
And so here we are now, opening with a fresh space. Council’s investment in the redevelopment was supported by a grant from the Government of South Australia and the Australian Government, representing a partnership between all three levels of government. The design was undertaken by Walter Brooke and the construction by Nehco along with work contributed by artisans - the repointing of our stone wall, the bespoke shop furniture, the wayfinding and signage throughout. There are so many aspects that show the thoughtful touch. And as I reflect now I can see that every single part of the Adelaide Hills Council’s departments have played a key role in the development of Fabrik.
The result is a beautiful newly built pavilion that houses a curated retail space; a climate-controlled gallery that can host exhibitions from our state and national cultural institutions; artist studios and an artist-in-residence space. Here in the Blanket Building we have a small display curated by historian and curator Pauline Cockrill, celebrating the significance history of the Onkaparinga Woollen Mill. This is a taster for a larger permanent display in the Mill Shed, in cooperation with the Onkaparinga Woollen Mill Museum Inc, and funded by the History Trust of SA. We also have spaces for events, creative workshops and commercial hire.
The thematic focus for Fabrik is textiles. Our name (which is German for factory or Mill) acknowledges the textile manufacturing of the site and the town’s history as a German (Silesian) settlement. Textile is a fantastic them to work with because it is so far reaching. Textiles are such a part of our lives that we don’t often see their significance, but everyone here tonight is wearing something that is either knit or woven. Everyone here is wearing clothes that have been made by hand - all clothe production requires a human touch.
We want Fabrik to stretch across the rich landscape of textiles; from home sewers and knitters through to contemporary artists using textile techniques to explore and express concepts and ideas. To connect with the guilds : basketweavers, spinners & weavers, embroiderers guilds, who are ensuring important skills are not lost.
We want to see and share the work of First Nations artists, learning from the cultural understandings and perspectives that have developed over thousands of years of living on this country (our exhibition upstairs is an example of that).
Textiles give us the potential to engage with sustainability, of fast fashion, of waste and of repurposing, and textiles enable us to connect internationally, particularly with our South Eastern Asian neighbours where traditional textile techniques are still practiced. Our fist international artist residency is happening in December in collaboration with 16abermarte gallery in Sydney, when we are welcoming Mariem Thidarat from Thailand to stay with us and make work within our community.
Textiles enable us to be profoundly local, emerging from the social and manufacturing history of Lobethal but instead of making us parochial also enables us to be globally connected. Or glocal, if you like.
I hope you will enjoy exploring what we have to offer. Our exhibition upstairs, All things connected, curated by Kay Lawrence, explores the way textiles connect us to culture, to our memories and to each other. The installation that you walked through, called present, curated by India Flint, shows the work of 130 artists who responded to the invitation to stitch a self-portrait of themselves onto a handkerchief. We received artworks from around the world and the display of these works enables the artists to be present even though they may be far away.
Here we have displayed a signature cloth owned by the Woodside CWA. The signing of signature cloths was common in the early and mid 20th century, as a way of commemorating a significant moment as well as fundraising for a cause. So we invite you, as part of this significant moment in Fabrik’s history, to sign our own signature cloth. Your name will be handstitched onto the cloth by our volunteers and your presence here will be remembered.
Thank you so much for joining us here today.
I’ll return to my own voice now, to thank the stitchers from around the globe who sent in their portraits. Putting them together was an interesting challenge. My first vision had been that they would hang as a kind of tideline, much as I had installed the beautifully stitched teatowels for the exhibition quiet conversations but sadly the walls I’d had my eyes on were not yet available. I then experimented with stitching the pieces together but soon realised I would need more flexibility as the work would move and change with the weight of hanging.
I settled on pinning the pieces together with safety pins, humble domestic implements that have been used to effect repairs or hold things together since Walter Hunt patented his ingenious springy device on April 10, 1849. In this instance they hold this small international community together, already linked by the use of needles and threads.
For more about the Onkaparinga Woollen Company, click here
The list of participants ::
Also, if I may, announcing my last in person workshop for the year, in New South Wales, Australia
Two days at Glenmore House (and in the fabulous garden), November 14 & 15, 2024
details here
Thank you for pinning us together … we must be floating in the breeze, listening to fragments of conversations ❤️
Dear India, thank you for everything, for idea, for waiting to open mail with portraits, for putting us together, for making it all possible. It is great to know the whole story. I am so happy to be part of it. I loved the whole process, appreciate steady and slow movement towards the opening. Go Fabrik, go.