Stitch with Sappho: Day workshop

Next date: Saturday, 13 June 2026 | 11:00 AM to 04:00 PM

Mid-view of a woman wearing a black and green shirt, standing and using a white sewing machine in an artist's studio

Image credit: Gianna Rizzo

Local artist Juliet D Collins will be running a whole day creative textile-based workshop influenced by the lens and words of Ancient Greek poet Sappho. You’re invited to drop in and contribute to a collaborative installation artwork to be exhibited at G3 in Parkdale later in the year — come for an hour or stay all day.

Inspired by Sappho’s fragmented legacy, we will explore queer and feminist themes, the subjective female voice, the natural world and everyday objects that she honours. Through making, stitching and conversation, we’ll reflect on how Sappho’s work has been reinterpreted across time, and what her fragments reveal about what survives and what is lost.

Beginners and experienced makers warmly welcomed.

Reusing and recycling of textile materials is strongly encouraged.

Every contributor will be fully credited in the final artwork.

What to expect

a welcoming, inclusive creative space for beginners through to experienced textile makers
opportunity to learn the foundations of freehand machine embroidery
create a stitched text fragment which will contribute to a large collaborative installation artwork
exploration of Sappho's legacy, including queer and feminist themes
relaxed conversation that encourages respectful sharing of everyone's ideas and points of view
all materials and equipment provided (you may also bring your own preferred materials).

Book now

Who will be teaching?

Juliet D Collins is a Melbourne-based textile and mixed media artist whose work explores memory, identity, and the embodied impact of societal power structures. Originally from Scotland, she studied Fine Art Sculpture in Edinburgh before relocating to Mordialloc, where she has lived and worked for over 20 years. Juliet has a longstanding connection to Kingston Arts, having exhibited in solo exhibitions, group shows, delivered art workshops and held market stalls through the Makers Market.

Her practice combines freehand machine embroidery, found domestic materials and other objects, and sculptural techniques to create artworks and installations that interweave feminist and queer theory with tactile storytelling. Following graduate study at the VCA, she has entered a dynamic new phase of material and conceptual experimentation.

During her recent Magnify Kingston residency, Juliet developed What Grows in the Joints? — a new body of work that explores the body as archive, site of memory and resistance. This mixed media textile art project will investigate identity, memory and knowledge through suspended and wall-based installations that trace connections between softness, structure and space.