In 2020 the Australian Tapestry Workshop received support from the Playking Foundation to commission fifteen Australian artists to develop tapestry designs as part of the ‘Weaving Futures’ project. As a response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, this initiative provided support and new professional development opportunities to artists during a culturally precarious time. Eugenia Lim designed ‘Future Fossils (Old Tjikko)’ which is being woven by Tim Gresham in 2021.

Eugenia Lim is an Australian artist of Chinese–Singaporean descent who works across video, performance and installation to explore how national identities cut, divide and bond our globalised world.

To begin creating tapestry designs, Lim fused stock imagery, 3D hyper-real marbel forms and archival analogue photographs to suggest a future in which surveillance and oppression will cease to exist. Drawing inspiration from philosopher Mark Fisher (1968-2017) and his theory of ‘capitalist realism’, Lim assembled collages during Melbourne’s COVID-19 lockdown, using imagery gleaned from the internet to produce a living archive of the present. ‘Future Fossils (Old Tjikko)’ features Old Tjikko, a 9,500-year-old spruce tree, thought to be one of the world’s oldest living plants.

For Gresham the two main challenges in weaving ‘Future Fossils (Old Tjikko)’ are capturing the detail around the edges of the tree and accomodating the unusual colours used in the design. Gresham is using 12 warps at 3.5 warps per cm, with 5 strands of ATW wool and cotton per bobbin.

Lim has exhibited, screened or performed at the Tate Modern, LOOP Barcelona, FIVA (Buenos Aires), Recontemporary (Turin), Kassel Dokfest, Museum of Contemporary art (Syd), Dark MOFO, ACCA, Melbourne Festival, Next Wave, ACMI, FACT Liverpool and EXiS (Seoul). She has been artist-in-residence with the Experimental Television Centre (NY), Bundanon Trust and 4A Beijing Studio. She is a 2018–20 Gertrude Contemporary studio artist and since 2019, is co-director (with Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor) of 25-yr-old artistic company APHIDS. Lim co-founded CHANNELS Festival, co-wrote/hosts ‘Video Becomes Us’ (ABC iView) and is represented by STATION.

The weaving of the ‘Future Fossils (Old Tjikko)’ tapestry is generously supported by the Playking Foundation and Creative Victoria.