This installation transforms a domestic scene into the site of protest and reclamation. Born from a conversation in the first year of my degree that exhibited patriarchal bias, the installation asks the viewer to reflect on the bias embedded in what they say and what they dismiss. Through textiles, ceramics, and found objects, I process my own experience of navigating societal assumptions – about gender, disability, and space. I stitch, stamp, glaze, and layer surfaces to expose the subtleties of microaggressions and inequity that are embedded in everyday language.
This expanded craft installation stages a paradoxical confrontation – an act of feminine defiance that refuses to stay quiet or small. I turn what has been coded as “too much” – bows, tulle, sequins, and a palette saturated with sweet colour – into a tactile language of resistance. Together, these gestures take up space and form a site of critique, throwing shade on the systems it challenges – a place where labour and language gather to resist softly, but completely.
Collectively, the pieces reclaim space for voices too often talked over, sidelined, or silenced.
Melanie Sky, ‘I Made It Cozy So You’d Feel the Tension’ (2025) Reclaimed canvas, tulle, cotton thread, beads, sequins, earthenware, slip, underglaze, glaze, light globe, electrical cord with inline switch, reclaimed furniture, rope, acrylic paint, clock mechanism, battery. Photographer: Melanie Sky
Melanie Sky, ‘A Seat at the Table’ (2025) Earthenware, underglaze, glaze, reclaimed furniture, acrylic paint. Photographer: Melanie Sky
Melanie Sky is a contemporary artist living and working on Djaara Country in Maldon, Victoria. Her practice spans textiles, ceramics, and installation, drawing on materials and methods historically coded as “feminine” to challenge the cultural hierarchies that diminish women’s work. Rooted in personal narrative and driven by a strong sense of justice, Sky explores labour, resilience, and politics. Sky refers to her method of making as expanded crafting – a mode of making that values process, embraces imperfection, and turns the handmade into quiet acts of resistance. Her work often reclaims and reuses materials, transforming objects and spaces into charged sites where intention and defiance coexist.
Melanie Sky, ‘A Seat at the Table’ (2025) Earthenware, underglaze, glaze, reclaimed furniture, acrylic paint. Photographer: Melanie Sky
Melanie Sky, ‘I Made it Cozy so You’d Feel the Tension’ (2025) Earthenware, underglaze, glaze, acrylic paint, rope, clock mechanism, acrylic. Photographer: Zahra Odea
Melanie Sky, ‘I Made it Cozy so You’d Feel the Tension’ (2025) Reclaimed canvas, tulle, cotton thread, beads, sequins, earthenware, underglaze, glaze, rope, acrylic paint, clock mechanism, battery. Photographer: Melanie Sky
Melanie Sky, ‘I Made it Cozy so You’d Feel the Tension’ Reclaimed canvas, tulle, cotton thread, beads, sequins, earthenware, underglaze, glaze, rope, acrylic paint, clock mechanism, battery. (2025) Photographer: Zahra Odea
Melanie Sky, ‘I Made it Cozy so You’d Feel the Tension’ (2025) Earthenware, underglaze, glaze, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, MDF, acrylic. Photographer: Melanie Sky
Melanie Sky, ‘A Seat at the Table’ (2025) Earthenware, underglaze, glaze, reclaimed furniture, acrylic paint. Photographer: Melanie Sky
Melanie Sky, ‘I Made it Cozy so You’d Feel the Tension’ and ‘A Seat At the Table’ (2025) Reclaimed canvas, tulle, cotton thread, beads, sequins, earthenware, slip, underglaze, glaze, light globe, electrical cord with inline switch, reclaimed furniture, rope, acrylic paint, clock mechanism, battery. Photographer: Dona Cayetana
