POSHU Women's Education Project 2017 by Susan Howe

Exhibition runs from: August 3rd - August 26th
Exhibition Opening night | Wednesday 2nd August | 5:30 - 7:00pm
Gallery F opening hours | Thurs-Frid 10-4pm | Sat 10am-2pm
Location: mim, museum of innocence mildura | 31-33 Deakin Ave

Artist statement

The POSHU Project has been evolving since it began in 2009.

My initial focus was on offering basic education to older women who never had the opportunity to go to school. Now, 9 years later, we have POSHU women’s groups in 28 villages in rural and remote areas of Uganda. Poverty and hunger are never far away for these women. Yet even during the recent drought they looked forward to their weekly classes.

“We like to meet together. It is a distraction from our problems, and we learn so much. It has helped us a lot. …There is a change now in the whole community. We are doing this for ourselves.  It is very good.”

In 2017, POSHU provided books, pens, blackboards and chalk to another 2 villages. We pay a local teacher to work in the village on Saturdays. Women are excited to learn to read and write. We teach their own languages as well as English and Math.

Volunteers run the POSHU community garden in each village. Many families benefit from improved nutrition.

But more than this, the women and girls are networking, seeing opportunities for the first time.

They are saving money as a group through POSHU Savings, and improving their small businesses as they share ideas and knowledge. “We are poor, not stupid!” they say. They can manage the project themselves, with just the bare structure I provide and small financial support to the 45 POSHU village teachers.

And as for me, this project keeps me on my toes, at the edge of my seat, as I’m constantly amazed at their ingenuity, honesty and resilience. I’m proud of what they’ve achieved. It’s exciting to be invited to a remote village recovering from recent insurgency, knowing that change is coming for them through POSHU Women’s Education Project. They are ready and willing to learn!

And so am I.

Texture within Nature by Carol Craig

Artist statement

My idea for this exhibition was to portray the wonderful textures that are present for

us to view in everyday scenes that are around us. If we take a little time to explore,

we will see how amazing nature is.

I have found that since taking up photography it has an amazing affect on my

wellbeing, as well as increasing my creativity.

What I would like the viewer to take away with them from this exhibition is the ability

to see the things that surround them from a different point of view.

Jayne Bawden: Clay3 exhibition

Gallery F artist for July contributing to Clay3 pottery group.

Jayne Bawden at work

Jennifer Gadsden: Clay3 exhibition

 Artist statement: Clay3 exhibition

This series of works Connections, focuses on social connections, the joys of friendship, communication and human interaction. The quirky figures are drawn from my imagination with inspiration taken from day-to-day life in Mildura – attending markets, playing and listening to music, cooking, and catching up with friends for a meal. The rather naïve figures were inspired by medieval art with flattened perspective and blocks of colour. I trained as a painter and printmaker at RMIT in Melbourne, and have always loved the immediacy of drawing and painting directly onto canvas or paper using a variety of paint mediums. I had never really explored clay as a medium until around five years ago, when I enrolled in a short course in jewellery making at SuniTAFE with local ceramic artist, Jayne Bawden. I fell in love with clay and the glazing process, and have continued to work in this medium since that time, joining the Mildura Pottery Club to keep learning. Painting with underglazes on clay is quite a different process to the more traditional forms of painting I learned at art school, and the underglazes can be quite unpredictable when fired to 1280°C in a kiln – the colours can change considerably, which can be both problematic but also exciting. All the bowls and tiles for this exhibition were hand-built and fired to bisque temperatures before commencing outline drawings in blue, black and grey underglazes and gradually painting layer upon layer of colours onto the surfaces to build the pictures and refine the images. The expressions on each of the figures evolve during the painting process. Some of the colours seem to burn out and fade when fired to 1280°C, while others stay bold and strong – I really enjoy the organic nature of this process and the uncertainty of how each piece will turn out.