By Anastasia McInerney | @anastasiamc_
Designers and artists from the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair visited the RMIT Fashion & Textiles Merchandising campus in Brunswick on Wednesday.
Fashion & Textiles Deputy Head VET Tina Guglielmino lead the team through facilities including a shoe making floor, production room and pattern making classrooms as part of a collaboration with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival.
As one of Australia’s leading design schools, RMIT provided the platform for future collaborations with Indigenous designers given the 2015 Strategic Plan to engage with “each city’s Indigenous and immigrant communities, their aspirations and experiences”.
“It was amazing to see the support for different certificate diploma degrees, covering everything from drawing to knitting and design,” CIAF model and aspiring textile artist Donna said.
Textile artist and designer Nickeema Williams said it was it was “good to see an inside into how the courses are run” at RMIT.
Coming from a grass root level, textile designer Lynelle Flinders said it was “just great” that the RMIT facilities had the answer to “any question” a student would have.
“It was a really unique opportunity to speak to this group of people as they were very keen to explore many of the creative avenues available to us,” Tina said.
“We were delighted to have them visit our campus and see the vast array of facilities and talk to some of our students about their experience in their programs.”
The RMIT Fashion faculty is currently discussing future collaborations and working towards “widening opportunities for Indigenous communities”.
The CIAF Birrimbi Dulgu Bajal fashion performance showed in South Wharf on Thursday as part of VAMFF’s Cultural Program Project Series.
Photo by Anastasia McInerney