Infuse Prize Collaboration

The Infuse Prize is a national prize which requires artists to form a collaborative partnership to produce an artwork. It is a challenging request: one where each artist learns something about art forms that differ from their own and where they must negotiate their ideas to create the new work.

I worked with Ana Petidis, a local weaver to produce A matter of time. Ana worked to weave Irish cotton into a cloth and we screen printed an image onto it for the finished work. It is more complicated than that of course, so I will share our artist statement to give you a deeper understanding of the subject and content of the work.

‘A matter of time is a collaboration between weaver Ana Petidis and photographer Ian Kemp, brought together through a shared understanding of grief and the solace that making can offer. The work combines hand-woven Irish linen with a screen-printed photographic image, produced by the artists themselves at RMIT print studio — two distinct practices finding a common language.

At the heart of this collaboration is lived experience. Both artists have walked alongside dying loved ones, and together they have turned to Ana’s Greek heritage to find a way to speak of what often resists words. In Greek mythology, the Three Fates govern the span of every life: Clotho spins the thread at birth, Lachesis measures its length, and Atropos — the most feared — makes the final cut.

It is Atropos who holds this work’s attention. The scissors in the image belong to Ana’s mother Kitty, who is in the late stages of her life. Her thread remains uncut, held in a moment of waiting that those who tend and love cannot control or bargain with. Ian, recognising in Ana the weariness of a carer, extended an invitation back to her weaving — to a creative space that grief had quietly closed off.

To make something together was itself an act of restoration. By placing their experience within an ancient story, Ana and Ian seek a deeper understanding of death as part of life’s continuity — and through that understanding, to find a measure of peace.’

As you can see, the print image turned into our final work, it was such a great transition, with so much learning on the way. I had never made a screen print before.

We were delighted to be chosen as one of the 30 finalists and that the work sold before the exhibition opened. We are currently in the process of making another 4 prints to complete the edition.