Treading Lightly: Contemporary Fashion & Textiles by Victorian First Peoples

Treading Lightly, a major fashion and textiles exhibition, opens at the Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT) this March, showcasing more than 38 garments, textile works and beautifully crafted accessories by seven First Peoples artists and designers based in Victoria.

The exhibition marks the fifth iteration of KHT’s ground-breaking Blak Design program. Delivered through intensive mentoring and studio-based learning at RMIT University’s School of Fashion and Textiles, Blak Design is the only program of its kind in Australia supporting First Peoples creativity, entrepreneurship and cultural expression.

Treading Lightly offers a powerful insight into contemporary First Peoples fashion and textile practice in south-eastern Australia. The designers embed personal narratives, cultural memory and deep connections to Country into each work, honouring lineage while speaking confidently to the present.

Work ranging from hand-dyed garments and plant-based textiles will be featured, as well as 3D-printed accessories, woven elements, repurposed materials and possum-skin garments. Together, the works articulate fashion as a living cultural practice – one that remembers, resists and renews.

The 2025 Blak Design cohort includes Vicki Burgess (Moonbird People); Kylie Colemane (Darug, Wiradjuri); Bianca Easton (Boon Wurrung); Clinton Hayden (Wiradjuri); Jasmine-Skye Marinos (Arrernte, Luritja, Pitjantjatjara, Kaytej, Warumungu, Pitta Pitta); Luke Morgan (Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri, Baraba Baraba / Barapa Barapa); and Megan Paine (Kuku Yalanji).

Each of the participants came with vastly different experience and backgrounds. Mentors brought their experience together to guide and harness the many ideas each brought to the program. Mentors include celebrated artist Dr Christian Thompson AO (Bidjara); Kate Reynolds (Associate Lecturer, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT); and Yashna Seethiah (Studio Technician, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT).

“Blak Design was really expansive,” said Megan Paine (Kuku Yalanji).

“It was set out to support everyone and their individual needs, but also for us to all come together to be inspired by each other. It was really cool to look around the room at my peers and see such different pieces from everyone, a huge variety of ideas, and to see how they manifested so individually for everyone.”

Throughout the program, sustainability is approached not as trend, but as custodial responsibility – through respectful material use, resourcefulness, adaptability and deep listening to Country.

“… these works form a chorus of practices grounded in Country, memory, and respect,” said Blak Design Mentor, Dr Christian Thompson AO.

“They remind us that sustainability is not merely a contemporary goal but an ancient principle – one that has guided First Nations cultures for millennia. Each designer brings forward an understanding that to make is to care – for land, for ancestors, for future generations. The exhibition becomes not just a celebration of design but a call to realign our ways of living, urging us to tread lightly, listen deeply, and recognise that every material has a story if we choose to honour it – an invitation to move through the world with greater gentleness and intention.”

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue documents the designers’ journeys in their own voices, alongside reflections from mentors of the program.

“Since its launch in 2021, the Blak Design program has supported 47 participants in their creative practice, strengthen commercial capability, and build enduring professional networks across the design sector,” said Tom Mosby, CEO, KHT.

The Blak Design program is supported by the Ian Potter Foundation and RMIT University. The Treading Lightly exhibition is supported by Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, Creative Australia, Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support, ANZ Bank and Viva Energy Australia.

Exhibition details

• When: 7 March – 17 May 2026
• Where: Koorie Heritage Trust, Birrarung Building, Fed Square.

More information: kht.org.au