Biography

Lavinia Ketchell's works are an ode to the marine life around her island. As part of the "Design for a Sea Change" initiative, artists at the Hammond Island Art Centre in the Torres Strait (Queensland) were the first to come up with the idea of using discarded fishing nets to create bags for sale. This initiative attracted the attention of a patron who decided in 2008 to encourage the Aborigines living on the north coast of Queensland to create works using these nets in order to safeguard marine fauna, but also to enable the artists to use a new medium that would not be transported to them by land but that they could collect themselves, just as their ancestors did with materials found in their immediate environment.

Collections: •National Museum of Australia •DFAT, Jakarta •Queensland Museum •Museum of Natural History •Le Havre; Museum of Anthropology, UBC National •Maritime Museum, Sydney •Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG), Switzerland