Brainstorming...

The Archibull… The name implies a mix between one of Australia’s most prestigious art competitions and an animal one should never wave a red rag. So when we were presented with the concept of ‘sustainably clothing a community for a day’, how could we represent it through an artwork using a life-sized fiberglass cow? Ideas started bubbling to the surface. With political and social statements about sustainable development in farming and agriculture. Given the brief to reflect upon cotton, we all pulled our heads together and researched the huge expanse of information that is covered by the term ‘cotton’. Denim jeans, t-shirts, sheets, oil, ethanol, cotton buds, cotton balls… We chose to work with the idea of clothing. How do we make clothing? A sewing machine! A mix of juniors pulled together to produce a vision of a cow with ‘Singer’ painted on the side. With our conveniently still animal, we have chosen to reflect the long process that cotton goes through. We decided to turn one side of the cow into an oversized sewing machine as a symbol to recognise this idea. A barcode was cut into the cow on the other side to reflect the industry of clothing and the idea of individuality, style and trends of fashion.  Stretch your imagination to see how a single, lonely cow (named Henry) can represent a material that stretches through several industries including the agricultural, fabrication and surprisingly reaches into the cooking and livestock industries.

Part of the team discussing ideas.

First few details.