Following the opening of Radical Futures: Gathering Ground at Nala Bardip Mia – Margaret River HEART, we spoke to curator Elisa Markes-Young about home, belonging and the complex space in between.

Born in Poland, Elisa moved to Germany with her family at sixteen, where she lived for twenty-one years. “I always wanted to be an artist, but I didn’t get the opportunity in Poland. There were high schools for art, but I wasn’t allowed to go, my parents were really strict,” she shared. “When we moved to Germany, I had to learn the language first, and then everything else. I tried to get to art school, but never managed to.”

Elisa eventually met her husband, Christopher Young, who is also an artist. “He basically put a camera in my hand, and I also started learning how to build pottery.” When they moved to Australia, Chris encouraged Elisa to enter her work into community art awards, first the City of Wanneroo and then the City of Joondalup. “By chance, I did something with textiles, and I ended up winning the Joondalup Community Art Award in 2003.”

That moment marked a turning point. Elisa has worked in textiles ever since, drawing on her history and returning often to the idea of tęsknota, a Polish concept of longing. While it is often translated as nostalgia, tęsknota carries the quiet sorrow of disconnection, the space between now and then, here and there, presence and absence. For Elisa, textile practice becomes a way of stitching connection back in.

“Everything is about home and belonging,” she reflects. “I still feel foreign in Australia. I feel Polish in Poland, but not fully, and I don’t feel German in Germany. I think I stand with one foot here, one foot there.”

It is from this space between countries, languages and identities, that Gathering Ground emerges.

Image: Gathering Ground artists at the opening event. Ana Brawls, Carmen Griffin, Cassandra Bynder, Elisa Markes-Young/Ruth Halbert, Jane Tangney, Kate Alida Mullen, Katharina Meister, Michael Wise, Moritz Mueller, Shelley McNab, Shayne Hadley, Yu-Hua Lan. Photo by Christopher Young.

Welcoming others to the table

For Gathering Ground, Elisa focused on the profound human need to belong. “It’s so pertinent right now with what’s happening in the world, where we have this post-colonial reckoning, collapsing systems and fractured communities” Elisa said.

“I didn’t ask for political work, but for me, it was a political subject matter. You know, the idea that, apparently, we can’t live with each other in peace.”

Having lived between countries and cultures herself, the opportunity to curate an exhibition about belonging meant intentionally reflecting the layered, lived diversity of the Margaret River region. “I wanted to show the diversity we have here, both in background and in art practice. I also knew that for Indigenous people and for newcomers, home and belonging are pertinent issues.”

Each artist responded to the theme in their own way. For example, Shelley NcNab’s artwork Humans at Home in the Universe explores the cosmic proposition that we are all made of stardust. “Shelley is questioning the man-made systems that divide us, such as borders, nationalities, cultures, and so on” Elisa shared.

Yu-Hua Lan, a Taiwanese ceramic artist, offered a deeply personal reflection with their work titled Whispers that shaped me. “Yu-Hua’s work is about finding her place in the landscape and allowing place to imprint on her.”

Katharina Meister, a German paper-cut artist who recently completed climate science studies, presented an animation focused on environmental change, with particular attention to the Marri tree and its ecosystem. Connecting Worlds is born from the alienation she first felt when she first moved to Margaret River. “She started to engage with the landscape and that’s how she found home, by listening to the land and getting to know it,” Elisa said.

Cassandra Bynder is a Noongar woman, whose work Koori Miya (a heart a home) is about guarding the fire in the home.

Elisa’s own contribution The unfinished welcome (table) extended into community collaboration. “The tablecloth is completely set at one end, embroidered with place settings. Then it becomes less and less, to indicate there is always one more space at the table. You can always put another plate on it.”

During the exhibition’s public program, the artists activated the piece by setting a seven-metre-long table and inviting community members to bring a meaningful dish.

“Everyone was asked to bring a dish that has certain significance to them; something from back home, or something that grandma cooked for them when they were children and share a story about it” Elisa said.

Afterwards, she embroidered the stains left behind from the meal directly into the cloth to stitch memory, gathering and community into the work itself.

From local to global concerns

Gathering Ground unpacks the dilemmas of belonging; inclusion and exclusion, being welcomed and being othered.

“I think we sort of broadened Sarah’s (Roots) brief, which really focused on rural communities. It is in fact a universal subject, they’re universal needs, so Gathering Ground offers a universal critique to a certain degree.”

Elisa points to the concerning anti-foreigner sentiment pervasive in Germany today.

“I don’t read the German press anymore, because it’s just shocking and scary, but for years people have been saying, ‘Oh, with all of these foreigners coming, I will leave this country!’ And I’m like, ‘If you leave this country, you’re the other somewhere else, you know?’”

“In the end, we’re all human. That’s something I was trying to show in my work (The unfinished welcome in three parts (loom) which was created with Elisa’s long-time collaborator Ruth Halbert), by using all the same-coloured yarns, just combined differently so they create different shades and different patterns. In the end, like Shelley’s piece, we are all made of the same stuff.”

“And the cultures that we have today only developed from people moving around and interacting with each other. I find it enriching” she said.

Image credits: Gathering Ground, installation view, Nala Bardip Mia (2026). Photos by Christopher Young.

A place to gather

Elisa worked closely with the artists through studio visits and shared meals. “We had two potluck dinners, and it was lovely to see people realise the connections between what they were thinking and what they were making, and to support each other.”

She also commissioned Daniela Palitos to write an essay for the exhibition. “I didn’t want her to just review the exhibition; I wanted her to write about the subject matter and the many aspects of belonging.”

Together, they visited the artists’ studios to discuss the work as it developed. The resulting essay sits in the exhibition like another artwork.

Curating Gathering Ground brought challenges and rewards. Elisa recalled working with an artist who felt stuck: “After visiting their studio, I wrote about what I thought was happening and asked if they could talk to me about it. This helped us both to clarify the concept, which became really strong in the end. That was very rewarding.”

“Another artist, who isn’t into networking, told me after the community launch that it was the first time they felt part of an artistic community.”

Reflecting on the experience, Elisa said, “It was my first time curating an exhibition and a lot of work, but I really enjoyed collaborating with the artists. I learned from them, and I think it brought a community of like-minded people together.”

She added, “Someone told me they think I’ve grown through this, which I found very lovely.”

Radical Futures: Gathering Ground is on at Nala Bardip Mia – Margaret River HEART until 3 February. Visit the Arts Margaret River website for more information. 

The WA Regional Arts Triennial 3: Radical Futures is funded with support from the WA Government. It is coordinated by Southern Forest Arts with support from ART ON THE MOVE through the Regional Exhibition Touring Boost. Project partners include John Curtin Gallery, Regional Arts WA, GalleriesWest and Kimberley Arts Network.