Merri Creek Dresses

Over the last year, I’ve been gathering rubbish, litter and invasive weeds from the Merri Creek in Melbourne and making garments from these recovered materials. Then I photograph the dresses being worn in the same area of the creek the materials were found. So far I have made dresses from plastic bags (polyethylene), plastic bottles (HDPE), cans (aluminium), and invasive reeds and prickly pear.

This creek is one of the few wild corridors of remnant bushland left in the inner city of Melbourne, and has borne the title of the city’s most polluted waterway for decades now (The Age, 2011).

This environmental/photographic project is an attempt to intervene in and draw attention to a local site in ecological trouble. It’s also a way to talk about and wrestle with my own distress around the environmental catastrophes we are leaving for the future generations.

Physically touching and even clothing my body, my children’s bodies, or my friends’ bodies in this contaminated waste, rather than looking at it from afar, is quite uncomfortable. It goes against our instincts to distance ourselves from pollutants of any kind. However, I think it also draws attention to the somewhat fraught connection between us and the land, and that we can’t distance ourselves forever. It’s already catching up with us.

All the images in this series were made on Wurundjeri country.