Ahead of tomorrow’s International Women’s Day, Newcastle City Council has launched an art installation featuring 5000 handwoven stars.
The City’s display is part of the ‘1 Million Stars to End Violence’ project, an international peace project started following the brutal murder of Jill Meagher in 2012.
The stars are inspired by the ones that founder Talia Pau’s ancestors relied on to navigate the Pacific Ocean and symbolise light, courage and solidarity.
Pau joined Newcastle Lord Mayor, Nuatali Nelmes, to launch the project at Newcastle Region Library on Friday.
“The installation aims to raise awareness of violence against women, bullying and racism,” the Lord Mayor said.
“Each star symbolises light, courage and hope to end all forms of violence in our community. Our aim in Newcastle and the Hunter is to create 10,000 stars by March 2017 in support of the initiative, so the Library launch celebrates the half-way mark.”
The project aims to unite people around the world to weave one million stars for a display at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. To date, more than 500,000 stars have been woven by communities in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Europe and the USA.
Supported by a Newcastle City Council Make Your Place Grant and Newcastle Region Library, the Hunter project is coordinated by Libby Levy and Anne Kempton from Timeless Textiles in Newcastle East. Alissa Coons and Anna Bowie helped them submit a grant application.
“I learned about the project through my daughter and grew excited by the prospect of a non-violent and peaceful way of connecting people to communicate about the violence around us,” Levy said.
“The project is rippling out across Newcastle to small groups and schools who are joining together to make stars.”
To keep up the production of stars, free weave workshops will be hosted at Timeless Textiles every Thursday from 10:30am to 12:30pm until 2017 and pop-up workshops will be open to all at Newcastle Region Library throughout March.
Newcastle City Council’s Make Your Place Community Grant Program provides grants of up to $2000 for community projects – applications for the next round are currently open.
