Historical information

Sara Lindsay is a Melbourne-based artist, curator and educator. She worked as a weaver at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (now the Australian Tapestry Workshop) from its foundation in 1976 until 1990. Alongside her art practice, Lindsay has lectured at the Tasmanian School of Art, held the role of Curator of Textiles at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, then the position of Production Manager at the Australian Tapestry Workshop. Since 2013 she has mentored three Karen refugee women from Myanmar, assisting in their professional development and furthering their tapestry skills. In 2023 Lindsay began the Ararat New Settlement Weaving Program, teaching and mentoring culturally diverse settlers from refugee and migrant backgrounds in the Ararat region.

The artwork exhibited here is part of body of work exploring Lindsay’s family’s historical ties to Sri Lanka. Her British grandfather managed a tea plantation in Ceylon’s hill country during the 1920s and 30s, where her mother was born before returning to England after his early death in 1937.

After her first visit to Sri Lanka in 2005, Lindsay developed works that responded to this journey. She chose a quiet, contemplative approach to reflect on the complexity of colonial histories. Research into her family history led her to delve deeper into Sri Lanka’s complex history as a trading nation and to expand her materials to speak to this layered past.

The use of cinnamon in this work connects to the story of 17th-century weavers from Southern India who were displaced from the Kingdom of Kandy and sent to the southwest coast to become cinnamon peelers under Portuguese and later Dutch rule. The finely woven ticking strips seen here reference the thick cotton fabric once used to cover mattresses and pillows aboard cargo ships transporting spices from Sri Lanka - a subtle reminder of the human stories woven into trade routes and colonial histories.