Image: *Filling in the Blank(et) - Stitching Stories* by Elina Priha, Eline Gaudé, Stella Martino, Anna Kozonina, Martta Nieminen, Onerva Heikka

July 18 - September 5, 2025

Opening tickets

Opening Event: Friday July 18, 5:30-7:30pm

list of works

Gallery I, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find In Reflection: In Response in The Mill’s Gallery I, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

For SALA 2025 The Mill is excited to present In Reflection: In Response, a new group exhibition curated by Stella Martino, featuring the work of five South Australian artists; Shani Engelbrecht (textiles), Calamity Tash (textiles), Carman Skeehan (glass), Lotte Schwerdtfeger (ceramics) and Yana Lehey (sculpture). In Reflection: In Response has been developed through a collaborative, community-driven component led by Stella, who sites Ursula Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction in the conceptual underpinning of the exhibition.

For each of the artists, this exhibition has been an opportunity to come together, share ideas, collaborate, form communal bonds and develop their work. We’re excited to see artists process, both in their individual practices and in creating collaborative work, showcased together in the gallery.

‘In Reflection: In Response’ is an exploration in storytelling and community-based practices. Emerging curator Stella Martino has been developing this group exhibition featuring five South Australian artists; Shani Englebrecht (textiles), Calamity Tash (textiles), Carman Skeehan (glass), Lotte Schwerdtfeger (ceramics) and Yana Lehey (sculpture). It includes a collaborative, community-driven artist development component (I am referring to it as a ‘residency’), alongside an exhibition and public program presented during the South Australian Living Arts (SALA) Festival. In conjunction with the exhibition, a small catalogue will be created, consisting of a small curatorial essay and response to artists and their works.
Ursula Le Guin wrote an essay called The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction that challenges the idea of stories that centre one individual. Instead, Le Guin offers the viewpoint that stories are a collection of things and moments gathered over time. Le Guin uses the term ‘carrier bag’ as a figurative and literal image of how we collect things and put them in a vessel to save for a time when those things are shared amongst others. ‘In Reflection: In Response’ brings five artists into a three-month residency guided by me at The Mill, where the group will cultivate and share ideas, collaborate, form communal bonds and develop their work for the exhibition. The residency will culminate in one communal piece of work, and individual or collaborative pieces from the artists in response using their chosen medium/s. The communal piece will be a take on patchwork quilting, with each artist hand-sewing a piece of recycled, locally sourced fabric, which will be sewn together at the end of the residency. The outcome of the residency and the artists’ interactions with form will become a physical manifestation of the time we spend together, sharing our thoughts, knowledge, practice and stories: our carrier bag.
Stella Martino is an emerging curator and writer originally from Dharug/Sydney, now based in Tarndanya/Adelaide. Stella completed her Master of Arts (in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art) from Aalto University in Finland in 2023. Since then, Stella has undertaken a curatorial internship at The Mill Adelaide under the mentorship of visual arts curator Adele Sliuzas. While studying in Finland, Stella co-curated and was a participating artist in the group exhibition Ghost Elephant Stitches in the Snow and co-created and developed the community arts and recipe book Recipes for Resilience and Care in the Climate Emergency. Stella is interested in queer ecologies and how the more-than-human interacts with their environments and in art. Her master's thesis aimed to understand how various forms of memory inform storytelling and their impact on our well-being. Through her research and previous projects, Stella also explores the benefits of community care practices within and beyond art spaces.
Shani Engelbrecht (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist of Indo-Fijian and Scottish-Irish heritage creating and living on Kaurna Land, South Australia. She holds an Honours degree in Visual Arts (2022) and a Bachelor of Creative Arts (2021) from Flinders University. Her work predominantly explores her identity and sense of belonging in the space she grew up in. Race and identity are at the core of Engelbrecht’s practice as she interrogates the incidences of racism experienced by people of colour daily. By using performance, photography, video, drawing and painting, her work blends traditional and contemporary techniques to convey the duality of her upbringing and to reflect on the feelings of otherness. Engelbrecht has shown works in multiple exhibitions including Art That Walks OFF the Walls (Goodwood Theatre & Studios 2024), Hatched: National Graduate Show Exhibition (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts 2023), not white/not brown (FELTspace 2023).
Calamity Tash, local queer Craft Wizard, believes art is for everyone and is most passionate about inclusivity and accessibility to the creative arts. Over the last decade Tash has been skill sharing with communities across the globe. The spreading of craft joy will continue as Tash becomes an enthusiastic resident at The Mill. Tash’s signature sparkle and use of whimsical dolls have been her wearable art trademark. Calamity Tash joins us on a journey of self expression and discovery. Her private studio will see the creation of many a weird and wonderful thing.
Carman Skeehan is a glass artist and maker, living in Adelaide, South Australia. Having completed the Jam Factory associate program in 2023, Carman has hit a milestone in her work, elevating her artistic practice. Guided by the meticulous creative process, Carman centres her work on the art of storytelling through glass, exploring the intersection of narrative and materials. Skeehan draws inspiration from early oil paintings and still lifes, creating a unique likeness in glass materials. Her work is an exploration of these elements, seamlessly blending them to create unique and compelling pieces of art.
Lotte Schwerdtfeger is an artist, currently a studio tenant at the JamFactory Ceramics Studio, Tarndanya/Adelaide. She is materially led across many mediums, being consistently drawn to ceramic processes. Lotte hand builds ceramics, coiling and pinching both functional, sculptural and installation works; combining tendrils of research which span anthropology, biology, symbolism and revelry in the small psychedelic moments of existence. Lotte is delighted by the alchemical and elemental processes of ceramics. She is always intrigued by the role of objects, quotidian and ritual, in defining and connecting human and nonhuman experiences. Lotte is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts; regularly working on commission, collaborative projects and gallery exhibitions. Where possible all materials are salvaged, reused and recycled, working towards a zero waste practice.
Yana Lehey is an environmentally motivated visual artist based on Kaurna land. Her practice spans various mediums, covering drawing, painting, and sculpture, depending on what a project calls for. Most recently, she has applied a textile approach to petroleum-based waste materials like plastic and rubber on a large scale, creating oversized crocheted sculptural works. She developed the necessary techniques as an accessible means for every person to tackle the waste problem without the need for expensive technology and infrastructure. Yana’s interest in environmental art first started to gain traction in 2020, with her first solo exhibition Face Up, featuring monumentally scaled watercolour portraits of nine young climate activists from diverse cultural backgrounds with diverse approaches. The research behind this project formed the basis for Yana’s current practice.