[Text on screen: We recognise the Ongoing Custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieves their potential through education]

[Text on screen: Artworld practitioners with Lynda Draper]

[Screen shows: External and interior views of the Campbelltown Arts Centre, ceramic artworks in storage, and artist Lynda Draper carrying and cleaning her sculptures]

Emily Rolfe – Curator at Campbelltown Arts Centre

A survey exhibition is a really exciting opportunity for an artist because a survey means that it captures their practice. So Lynda, for instance, has been working for 40 years, and this show brings together works that cover that full period of time.

[Screen shows: Emily Rolfe and Lynda Draper sit facing each other in an interview format]

Hi, my name is Emily Rolfe, and I'm the curator of contemporary visual arts here at Campbelltown Arts Centre. And I'm sitting with Lynda Draper, who's an artist, and her survey exhibition, Glimmer, is currently on show here.

I want to ask you about your intention as an artist. When you're sitting down to start a new work, do you have a specific vision in mind, or is it about the experimentation with materials and concepts?

Lynda Draper – Artist

It's been all of those things.

Sometimes it is about just the material. For example, the work in that yellow room was all about the material. It was about feeling the clay, thinking about creating something that looked at other materials as well, for example, thinking about papier maché and the feeling that has or making something that looks like it's made out of confectionery, like, for example, that Big Charlie work that looks like it's made out of bubble gum.

[Screen shows: Lynda and Emily walking through the exhibition pointing out specific ceramic artworks, installed in a room painted yellow with artworks on round yellow plinths]

Sometimes looking at different artists and different materials that are available around you can trigger something that might inform a work.

I was doing my master's at UNSW, and I had to set myself a question to answer. So with that work, it just happened to be in a period where my parents were selling the family home. And I had to go back, and I had to look at the objects with that home.

So, of course, there was all the objects from my childhood, like, for example, toys, and ornaments, and things that I'd collected over that time. And it was stored in the basement of that house. So I took those objects and tried to answer that feeling of going back into that house as an adult.

[Screen shows: Lynda and Emily walking through the exhibition pointing out specific ceramic artworks, installed in a room painted blue with artworks on round blue shelves]

When you're an adult and you go back to places of when you're a child, how everything is so distorted, like everything seems smaller. Like, there's an uncanny feeling that you have about different places where you've been as a child and now you're an adult. And so these objects took on that kind of uncanny, nostalgic feeling.

So, my thesis was about answering that question. What is nostalgia? What is that uncanny feeling? How do objects that you have from your past embody these feelings?

I think my favourite work from the series, the Garden Series, is this little piece here. [Screen shows: Lynda pointing out a small ceramic sculpture in the blue room.]

I actually had these as test pieces. I didn't even remember I had them till I was looking through the collection of boxes of ceramics that I had at home for the show and I found these works. Yeah, I just had them as tests, but it's funny how after all this time you can go back and you can see things in a different way.

Emily

[Screen shows: Emily speaking to camera in an office setting]

So working as a curator, I would say that I work in a very artist-led way, which means my choices and actions are informed by what an artist may want or what their vision may be. And I support them to deliver that vision.

[Screen shows: Lynda and Emily speaking in different rooms in the exhibition, pointing out specific ceramic artworks.]

So with Glimmer, Lynda Draper's survey exhibition, the concept of Glimmer is it's a moment of hope or possibility or clarity that she experiences throughout the day. And I think this is a very important point for us as humans as we go about our everyday life.

It's a moment for us to slow down, to acknowledge things that are important to us, to acknowledge people that are important to us, and to find little moments of creativity throughout our day.

Lynda

So this body of work evolved from the work in the blue room. I felt like I needed to go back to working like the work in my early work, with the coiling, and the pinching, and the freedom that brings.

Emily

And the colour.

Lynda

Yeah, and the colour. So bringing back the colour again. But there is a relationship strangely with the other room, even though it might not be apparent.

Working through that body of work, the Home Altar series, which was about unpacking what objects mean to you, like just innate objects from every day and how you can project meaning, and memory, and nostalgia to those pieces, made me begin to think about the bigger picture of how human beings have used objects throughout history.

So, this body of work, I started looking at ceramic objects in museum collections. And the first work was this work called Annette, which was based on those New Guinea mud masks in a museum collection. And I made a series of smaller pieces works as well.

[Screen shows: Lynda’s Annette work, a large dome shaped white ceramic piece with vertical tube-like multi-coloured additions with different coloured knobs stuck on and flat pebble like shapes sitting on top of the dome]

I used to work for TAFE, and I was making, I had to do a demonstration. And I didn't really think about what, I didn't have an idea of what to make and a friend who was going through a hard time was telling me a story about their situation. And I thought, what I'll do is I'll make you a genie bottle, a magic bottle that you can, like, make a wish on. I know it sounds a bit silly. So that's how this body of work came from.

And then, of course, in a lot of museum collections, there's genie bottles that hold a lot of power in the history.

[Screen shows: Emily and Lynda sit facing each other in an interview format]

Then from that body of work, I found the solid form started to get a lot tighter, and I felt like I'd like to just use the coils as a way of loosening up and freeing myself and doing like 3D drawings in space. So that's how the works in the green room evolved.

This is an early work, one of the first of the series. Thinking about those museum objects, I was thinking about tiaras and crowns. And so I made these fantasy headpieces.

[Screen shows: Lynda and Emily in the exhibition pointing out specific ceramic artworks, installed in a room painted green with artworks on round green tables.]

Emily

[Screen shows: Emily speaking to camera in an office setting, with cuts to Lynda and gallery staff installing ceramic artworks in a room painted purple with purple tables, and Lynda cleaning ceramic artworks]

An exhibition such as Glimmer is a huge collaborative project.

It definitely revolves around the relationship between the curatorial team and the artist. And that is one that is, it's a relationship of trust and respect, and it's developed over a period of time, as we are working very closely. And I think a really important point is that I am or the curatorial team is working with the artists on often their life's work, work that is very personal and private. And they're welcoming you into a very intimate part of their life.

[Music playing]

Celeste Wrona – Education officer at Campbelltown Arts Centre

[Screen shows: Celeste Wrona speaking to camera in a gallery setting, with cuts to Celeste and gallery staff in the exhibition space]

I'm Celeste Wrona, I'm the education officer at Campbelltown Arts Centre. Because this is an artist-led approach, we're always ensuring, and we're working with living, breathing artists, we're not writing about artists that have created work hundreds of years ago. We're talking about artists' contemporary practice that's alive and happening right in front of us.

All of that information that we're gathering is from credible sources and then cross-checked with the artist later on to ensure that then when we've reinterpreted that information, we've done it accurately.

So, there was definitely lots of research early on, so lots of reading, lots of listening, and then going back and forth with Lynda in conversation as I then start to create lots of notes and drafts.

And does go back and forth as well to the curator because then the room sheet is getting developed or the catalogue is getting developed simultaneously as I'm writing the education kit. So, Emily will share her notes with me, and she's also drawing from this same research. So, I will share my education kit with her. And then they kind of start to inform each other as well.

So, I'll grab excerpts from Emily's text, and she'll grab bits from mine. And they all start to communicate quite beautifully with each other.

So, it is really that genuine back and forth conversation to ensure that what's communicated is concise and it is accurate, and it is in alignment with what the artist wants and how they want their work to be represented to an audience.

Emily

[Screen shows: Emily and Lynda sit facing each other in an interview format]

So, we sat down, and we went through all of your works in printed form and we looked at the different time periods that they were made in.

It was very obvious and obvious for you, but I learned that the different periods of time are very distinct. And you either had different things going on in your life, or you were experimenting with materials in a different way.

But I think that is what definitely led to us presenting the show in the way we have. So, the show is chronological, not in the way that you experience it or an audience member experiences. But each room is a certain chapter of time.

Lynda

[Screen shows: different rooms in the exhibition are shown with artworks installed. Each room has a different colour scheme with matching walls and furniture]

And we knew that that Home Altar work needed an intimate space, so we put it in that room.

And initially, we had it in like chronological walk through.

Emily

Yeah, you're right.

Lynda

And then we switched it around. And we put the ceramic and glass works that are the most recent works at the front.

And we thought that those early 80s vessel forms needed their own little space. And having them at the back in that huge, big, long room, which is quite big, and I thought, oh, those works are so small. But that created a whole different sort of feeling.

So, in the green room, you have these huge, big works in a big space. And then you walk through into that yellow, glowing room that's quite large, but you only have small pieces.

So, I think it's interesting how that works as well. It's the scale of the works and how they create a different atmosphere throughout.

Emily

[Screen shows: Emily and Lynda sit facing each other in an interview format.]

Can you tell us a little bit about what your hopes were for this show and what you thought audiences, how they might feel or what you were wanting them to feel?

Lynda

I suppose the title informs that.

[Screen shows: entrance to Lynda Draper Glimmer exhibition and audience members moving through the exhibition, with closeups of selected ceramic artworks]

I would like to aim, I suppose, with my work to create a space where people can bring their own experience to the work, have a space where they feel some positive experience, a space where they can use their imagination and they can, you know, have, I suppose like in some ways with the Home Altar objects, I've got my relationship to those objects. The viewer might have their own relationship to those objects or not.

Emily

[Screen shows: Emily and Lynda sit facing each other in an interview format.]

I suppose it's also, we spoke about creating an immersive environment, sort of drenching the space in colour and the furniture being specific colours and so people really feel the shifts and the changes as they move between the rooms as well.

Lynda

Yeah, because you know what, you can get very attached to things, and you can actually try and put too much in a space. And that's something that you have to learn as an artist that you need to edit.

Celeste

[Screen shows: Celeste speaking to camera in a gallery setting, with cuts to the exhibition spaces and closeups of text printed on the gallery wall]

The overview text that's created by the curator and the artist in the early stages of the exhibition development really informs all of the different writing that happens along the way. And that is shaped dependent on the audience we're delivering to and what that information is trying to achieve.

So, for example, if the media and marketing team are taking that information on, they're definitely utilising that information in a way to not only inform the community, the wider community, so generally adults about the exhibition, but to also entice them to visit, usually trying to find touchpoints or ways to connect with them that might make that experience meaningful and make them want to come and see the show.

If we're thinking about it more from the curator's perspective, that exhibition text becomes part of the room sheet or the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition. It goes on our website, so it becomes a piece of information that's really giving the community and the audience that enter the gallery access to understanding the artist, understanding a little bit about their practice, and an overview of what they might experience when visiting that exhibition.

Emily

We often choose to use a different interpretive material method for each exhibition, and it really comes down to what best suits the works in the project.

In the case of Glimmer, we have chosen to use a numbered sticker system.

[Screen shows: closeup footage of ceramics artworks, numbered stickers on exhibition furniture, and the exhibition catalogue with a numbered list of artworks]

So next to each work, there is a letter and a number that correlates to a full list of works in an exhibition room sheet that people can pick up and walk around with and take home with them.

And we did this purely because of the number of works in the show. And we felt that having artist labels would make the show look quite busy. So it was really mostly an aesthetic choice.

Celeste

[Screen shows: Celeste speaking to camera in a gallery setting, with cuts to the gallery exterior and interior.]

My role here is primarily creating programs for schools, for tertiary students, for young people in our community to engage with contemporary art.

And really, I think the key thing that I always try and deliver is to create really meaningful experiences that are relatable for young people to step into the gallery and not feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the setting, which I know can often happen. But to create a safe space for them to feel they can engage and connect with art and to feel that it's a real, living, breathing thing.

And that's through things like excursions or workshops, through resources we create that allow them to, I suppose, start their learning in the safe space of the classroom, to build those connections with the artists, their practice, and then come into our space here and already feel a sense of I understand, and I'm comfortable with what's around me, and I'm ready to explore these works deeper.

I also love to ensure that the audience is getting insights into an artist's practice or the exhibition that they couldn't get if they weren't behind the scenes here.

[Screen shows: Celeste photographing the exhibition spaces as the furniture is being painted and assembled and speaking with Lynda and Emily in the exhibition spaces]

So, one thing I really love to do in all my education kits because I found this so interesting when I first came is showing them what's going on that people don't ever share, so going behind the scenes and showing them the mess of an install and what happens to set up an exhibition and to put things together and interview the curator and get the knowledge behind what's going on and why it happened this way.

So, you're not only hearing the artist's voice, you're hearing the curator's voice. You're hearing the educator's voice all coming together as one in a resource.

In writing an education kit, the main ideas and perspectives are obviously communicating the artist's voice and intentions quite clearly and concisely. So it involves a lot of working firsthand with the artist in those very early stages of even fleshing out what that kit might look like and ensuring that it aligns with their vision for the exhibition and complements the exhibition.

[Screen shows: closeups of the printed education kit showing images of the artist, artworks, and supporting text]

So, Lynda's kit, for example, is broken up just like the exhibition into the stages of her practice over the years. Because it's a survey show, we've presented the education chronologically, so obviously, it makes sense for the audience as they're reading and understanding Lynda's practice in a timeline as it developed and changed.

And what's beautiful about that, too, is you can definitely see those transitions, but you can also see these connections of when something from the past informs the future and so forth.

[Screen shows: Emily speaking to camera in an office setting, with cuts to the gallery exterior]

Emily

So, the centre has a strategic plan that covers a period of years. And we write that as a team. That often involves, you know, what community groups - like, who do we want to engage? Who is our local audience?

How do we ensure that audiences want to come here and that when they come here, they see things that they enjoy seeing or that are meaningful to them? And they engage with contemporary art or contemporary performance, and that they go home and they talk to their friends about it or their family about it, and they want to come back.

It needs to be a place that's important to them and where they see issues that are relevant to them or where they come and they learn.

We also try and work with artists who are working nationally or internationally because I think it's really important to bring other stories here to our audiences.

[Screen shows: Emily and Lynda sitting facing each other in an interview format]

Early in the development of the show, we started talking about inviting an exhibition designer to work with us on the project.

I think we both felt that we wanted to steer away from putting the works on white plinths, and we wanted to try and create a really immersive environment for audience members. And we were very lucky to be able to ask Youssofzay Hart, a Sydney-based exhibition design and architectural company, to be part of this project.

[Screen shows: closeups of technical diagrams of the exhibition furniture]

Lynda

We initially got together, and I had some ideas about some different shapes that I was interested in displaying the work. And so we looked at the different design options and then took one of those options and kept working with that.

[Screen shows: gallery staff building and painting the exhibition furniture.]

Emily

Over a 2-week period, we work with about 6 to 8 installation technicians each day. And they have an enormous range of skills. Most of them, if not all of them, are artists themselves. So they really understand the way an artist works, and they understand how to work with artists and how to deliver their vision.

I think we definitely rely a lot upon them to help us bring the vision to life. We speak to them about it every day. And they have suggestions and ideas, and they have particular skills and ways of doing things. And the show wouldn't look the way it does without them.

[Screen shows: Emily and Lynda sitting facing each other in an interview format]

Your exhibition includes works from your own collection, but also from private collectors and from institutional collections. And obviously, the nature of ceramics is that the works are incredibly fragile. We can't just hang them on a wall. We have to think a bit more intensively about how we're going to display them. And that's obvious we've done that here, working with an exhibition designer and creating the beautiful tables that they are on.

When we were doing that, we definitely came up against a few roadblocks or speed bumps, I suppose, especially in consideration of institutional loans because a lot of institutions have very specific display instructions about their works, be that about the humidity and the temperature or about people not being able to touch them or reach them.

So, we were asked by a few institutions if we could put Perspex boxes over their works. And that was a very hard no from you, understandably.

Lynda

We've got works that weren't included because we just thought that would be too restrictive.

Emily

Absolutely.

Lynda

And it would just, yeah, kill—

Emily

Well, yeah, it'd just be a few of them. So, it would really take away from other pieces, I think. But we were able to work with an institution to get around that request. And they asked us if we could just consider reach distances.

[Screen shows: footage of different rooms in the exhibition space, with gallery staff discussing the exhibition furniture]

So, the fantastic thing about this furniture that was created, that can be shifted and changed and pushed into different directions, was that we were able to sort of put works in front of others or put tables in front of other tables so that audience members couldn't actually reach their works.

Lynda

Yeah, because one of them was 1, was it 1 metre or 800 or something?

Emily

Yeah, yeah, the reach distance

Lynda

The reach distance.

Emily

quite far. But I guess also we had to think about them being objects so people could view them from different angles

Lynda

Different angles.

Emily

and walk around the works. So design of these tables were so flexible for us.

And you're quite specific about the heights at which you show your work. So I mean, obviously, you've been showing them for a long time. So you know what feels right and what doesn't. So it was great that we could give that information to the designers.

[Screen shows: Emily pointing out small sculptures on a shelf in the exhibition space]

There is museum gel under most of the works in the exhibition, and that gel acts like a bit of an adhesive, and it means it's much harder to remove the works from the shelf. But it also doesn't leave a mark on the bottom of the work at the end of the exhibition.

[Screen shows: footage in the exhibition spaces showing lighting and shadows]

So, we really tried to ensure that where possible the shadows were a big part of the design of the show and the feel of the show. It's always a funny challenge in an institution because you've got to make sure just on a practical level that you have enough lights to light a show like this with so many objects in it. And you've got to balance the light on the objects and the light on the wall and the feeling of the space.

Like the yellow room, for instance, we've actually lit the walls in spots to create that floating feeling.

Whereas in the green room, we've pulled the light off the walls to ensure that you've got that dark, immersive space.

Some of the large cage-like forms, their shadow splays across the floor.

Lynda

Which sort of extends the work.

[Screen shows: Emily speaking to camera in an office setting with cuts to audience members discussing artworks in the exhibition spaces]

Emily

Last year, we presented a group show called In Every Room. So as part of this exhibition, In Every Room, we held a couple of artists panels, and each of the artists got to speak about their work in more detail and their research.

And one of the artists was asked a question about how art might be able to change the world. And they said, very frankly, they don't believe that art can change the world, but they believe that the educational ability is the most important part.

And I think that for me that really struck a chord because I think that's what we can do here in a gallery or in an arts institution. We create opportunities for people to experience other people's way of thinking or experience a new way of thinking and to open their eyes and to be informed about things that may change how they go about their day and experience the world.

[Text on screen: Thank you to Campbelltown Arts Centre and Lynda Draper. This video was produced by emagined for the NSW Department of Education: Secondary Curriculum – Creative arts

Located on Dharawal land, Campbelltown Arts Centre is proudly owned by the people of Campbelltown. A cultural facility of Campbelltown City Council, assisted by the NSW Government through Create NSW. Campbelltown Arts Centre receives support from the Neilson Foundation and the Packer Family Foundation.]

[Text on screen: Featuring, in order of appearance, Lynda Draper, Emily Rolfe, Celeste Wrona
‘Lynda Draper | Glimmer’ was presented at Campbelltown Arts Centre from 6 December 2025 – 22 February 2026.
Exhibition design: Youssofzay Hart
This video was filmed on Dharawal land. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
Logos: Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown City Council, NSW Government, Neilson Foundation, Packer Family Foundation.]

[Text on screen: Filmed and edited: Andrew Piper, emagined
Production Manager: Emily Murphy-O’Neill, emagined]

[Text on screen: NSW Government logo, © State of New South Wales (Department of Education) 2026]

[End of transcript]