✨ Exciting News ✨
Rochelle Summerfield awarded 2025 Grafton Regional Gallery Travelling Scholarship
I’m honoured to be awarded the 2025 Grafton Regional Gallery Travelling Scholarship.
My project, Tracing the Living Floodplain, supports my professional development and extends my research into old-growth trees, waterways, and the role of both exotic and native grasses in regenerative farming along the Marrambidya (Murrumbidgee River).
Exploring Living Floodplains
This residency offers an incredible opportunity to explore how these natural elements work together to sustain healthy ecosystems, strengthen biodiversity, and support sustainable landscapes.
The outcomes will evolve into a large-scale immersive installation for Listen to the River – Hopeful Disruptions, our group exhibition at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery in August 2026.
About the Project
Tracing the Living Floodplain is a professional development project by artist Rochelle Summerfield on Wiradjuri Country in the Riverina.
Through field-based drawing and collaboration with regenerative farmers, Rochelle explores floodplain ecologies with holistic farming to inform artworks that raise awareness about nurturing connections with living landscapes.
Returning to the Riverina is deeply meaningful, as these floodplain environments are vulnerable to land clearing, chemicals, dam releases of cold water and stock access. Increasing awareness of the sensitivity of the river and the farmers who are custodians have shaped her understanding of the vulnerability of river ecosystems and the importance of farming practices that sustain living landscapes. Renewing these relationships will enable on-ground research, access to properties along the Marrambidya River, and opportunities to develop collaborative, place-responsive processes.
This residency provides an incredible opportunity to explore how old-growth trees, waterways, and the role of both exotic and native grasses work together to support healthy ecosystems, strong biodiversity and create sustainable landscapes. The outcomes will evolve into a large-scale immersive installation as part of Listen to the River – our group Hopeful Disruptions scheduled for an exhibition at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery in August 2026.
I’m deeply grateful for the financial support and the recognition of my arts practice and I look forward to sharing more as the project unfolds.
This project is supported by Grafton Regional Gallery, as part of the Creative Clarence program.
