When Dilly Bags Catch the Light is an inspiring installation by Delvene Cockatoo-Collins exploring matrilineal storytelling and cultural knowledge through contemporary installation.
Presented at Brisbane Quarter, the work reflects the artist’s time spent with her mother and the influence of her great-great-grandmother’s dilly bags. The installation honours her maternal lineage while adapting traditional weaving techniques and materials into a contemporary visual language.
The exhibition features three large-scale stylised dilly bags created with traditionally sourced materials from Minjerribah. These include quampie shells, tawalpin (cotton tree fibres) and yungair freshwater reed, combined with dyed and printed linen and wire to create sculptural forms that reference the gathering, storage and cultural significance of these materials.
Cockatoo-Collins lives and works on Quandamooka Country and her practice reflects a deep connection to land, ancestry and community. Her work carries knowledge and techniques passed down through generations by her mother Evelyn and grandmother Bethel, continuing thousands of years of cultural tradition while evolving through new materials and contexts.
Subtle shimmering elements woven through the installation reference light, memory and continuity, bringing a quiet sense of movement and presence to the space. The work also responds to themes of landscape, light and human experience of Country, connecting conceptually with Gallery of Modern Art’s current exhibition Olafur Eliasson: Presence.
Alongside the installation, garments from Cockatoo-Collins’ previous runway collections are also on display, including works shown at the Melbourne Fashion Festival, Brisbane Fashion Festival, Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair and Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.
The exhibition is free to visit and open daily.
