Kyra's work One Continuous String is included in Hatched 2022.
Sitting Down Place challenges the archival records concerning the Indigenous people
of Moongalba, also known as Myora mission. Government policy forbade traditional practices and enforced the introduction of colonial uniforms. The Indigenous people of Moongalba embodied cultural resilience by retaining knowledge, beliefs, and traditional ways of life. In 1896 the Myora Mission became a reformatory school used for cheap labour. Mancktelow’s research focuses on this period and the clothes the community were forced to wear. Through artmaking, research, and yarning with Moongalba descendants and Elders, Mancktelow focuses on maintaining traditional ways of making passed down by the Elders, the Moongalba Grannies. By recreating the uniforms and the Grannies’ dresses using traditional methods, Mancktelow emphasises the critical urgency of truth-telling, understanding, and healing as a nation.
‘These garments and prints investigate long-lasting legacies of colonialism, asking questions such as how we remember and acknowledge these histories. My hope is to draw upon the strength of resistance by adapting, retaining cultural ways and identity.’
