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Jo
Mellor-Stuart
Biography
Jo Mellor-Stuart is a PhD candidate and Australian artist at UNSW Sydney, Australia. Her practice spans expanded textiles, textile activism, installation, painting, film, and socially engaged art. She explores relationships between people, Country, and ecological systems, with a particular focus on environmental restoration and Aboriginal cultural knowledge.
Her PhD research project investigates endangered Posidonia australis seagrass through collaborations with Aboriginal Knowledge Holders and Marine Ecologists. Mellor uses textile practices, including embroidery, slow-stitching, collaborative making and installation, to create textile protest banners that make ecological knowledge and often-hidden marine environments visible.
Her Master of Fine Arts research focused on the Darling River and Menindee Lakes in NSW, Australia, where she worked with Aboriginal communities in response to water degradation. These experiences established her commitment to a socially engaged, collaborative and environmentally responsive art practice.
Mellor was the 2024 Australia/New Zealand winner of the Saatchi Gallery Art for Change Prize, London. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours), a Master of Fine Arts degree from UNSW Sydney, and a Diploma of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in New York. She is a 2026 finalist in the Waverley Art Prize, Fisher Ghost Art Prize and Willoughby Art Prize.
Restoring Seagrass, Restoring Connection: An Eco-Arts-Activist Approach to restoring the Endangered Posidonia australis seagrass
Restoring Seagrass, Restoring Connection: An Eco-Arts-Activist Approach to Understanding the Fragility of Posidonia australis Seagrass and Its Importance through Collaborations with Aboriginal Knowledge Holders and Marine Scientists
This paper and presentation examine how collaborative art practice can function as environmental activism within ecological restoration. My practice-led PhD investigates how artistic methodologies can create dialogue between Aboriginal knowledge systems, marine science, socially engaged art and eco-activism in response to the degradation of endangered Posidonia australis seagrass along the east coast of New South Wales, Australia.
Prioritising renewed cultural connections to Cammeraygal, Gamay and Awabakal Sea Country, the research brings Aboriginal Knowledge Holders, including Elders and community members, into collaborative exchanges, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as custodians of the world’s oldest continuing living cultures, with cultural knowledge and connections to Country sustained for at least 65,000 years.
Through painting, photography, hand-sewn and embroidered textile activist banners, and immersive installations, field encounters with seagrass ecologies are translated into tactile, material expressions that highlight ecological fragility and the restoration of the endangered Posidonia australis. Slow stitching and digital photographic processes operate alongside yarning, Deep Listening and sustained fieldwork, creating an embodied inquiry into ecological change, restoration and ethical engagement with Country.
Art activism is central to the research. My earlier collaborative activism with Ngiyampaa Elder Aunty Beryl Carmichael and the Barkandji community in Menindee, NSW, Australia, responded to the mismanagement of water from the Darling River and demonstrated how textile protest banners and community-led art actions can amplify Aboriginal voices and environmental justice concerns.
The research argues that art can transform collaborative knowledge into public engagement and action. Rather than illustrating scientific or cultural knowledge, art becomes a relational, activist process through which ecological concerns, cultural stewardship, and responsibilities to Country become visible, felt, and collectively considered through activist banners.