SymbioticA

Donna Franklin

Further information

Country of origin

Australia

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Franklin undertook research into the techniques of ancient and new technologies through exploring the growth and staining of fungi on textiles.

Biography

Donna is currently a PhD candidate and academic at the School of Communications and Arts, Faculty of Education and Arts, Edith Cowan University (ECU). 

She often collaborates with practitioners across the arts, humanities and sciences to create networks for/with the communities between graduate and undergraduate students, local, national and international artists.  Some of these include projects within Strut Dance Company and Artrage.  She has also presented educational workshops on fungi’s role in the environment at the annual Truffle Festival at Mundaring Arts Centre.

Donna has exhibited biological and non-biological works nationally and internationally.  Some if these include:

IFFS, ACD, Denmark, 11, Animals-People, POP Gallery, Queensland, 11, Signs of Change, FORM 10, Super Human, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne 09, Biotech – Art Revisited EAF, Adelaide 09, Beyond Botanica, Artspace, WA 09, Coded Cloth, Samstag Gallery, ANAT, 08, Skin to Skin, Fremantle Arts Centre, 08, ARS Electronica Festival 07, Austria. Mycologia, Mundaring Arts Centre, 07, Second Skin ENTRY06, Vitra Design Museum, in Germany and Taiwan 07, BEAPworks06 WA, BEAP04 Bio Difference: The Political Ecology, Lawrence Wilson Gallery, WA, and Hatched 05 at PICA, WA.

 

Research projects

Donna Franklin's work at SymbioticA was exhibited in BioDifference at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery during BEAP2004.

“...a white dress 'colonised' by a fungal growth. This encrustation was in reds, oranges, pinks and dull greens, transforming the white purity of the cotton fibre into a living fabric of dazzling beauty... The invasion of something so closely connected with self by a beautiful but alien life form was wonderful but alarming – like the earth reclaiming the body after death.” Simon Blond, The West Australian Arts Review, 25 September 2004.

Funding
  • Self-funded residency working in collaboration with Gary Cass, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Science, UWA.
  • The 2006 six-month residency funded by ArtsWA
Period of research

2003, 2004, 2006