THE STORY
I founded Emma Jackson Pty Ltd after winning the Tapestry Design Prize for Architects in 2021. The winning entry, Time Shouts, was a geological provocation of the East Coast of Australia. The interest in the relationship between culture and geology was born out of a PhD I completed at RMIT in 2019. After I completed my PhD, Melbourne went into hard lockdown for 2 years, and I used this time to experiment with weaving as a vehicle to tell these geo-cultural stories.
I am the daughter of a geologist and spent my childhood in Holland, the UK and West Africa before settling in Perth. I was born in Melbourne, but learnt to understand geology as a way of grounding myself away from ‘home’. My Mother engaged in all manner of weaving and textiles to occupy her time and forge connection in remote locations. My grandpa would record himself reading Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories on cassette tapes and send to me in West Africa. These lyrical speculations on how the planet and animals were formed, and the beautiful illustrations that accompanied them have had a profound impact on my thinking. and weaving through isolation.
I found belonging away from home through the mix of geology, textiles, and story telling. The pressure cooker of lockdown forced this into a crucible that emerged as a creative practice. I felt the need to share this way of seeing, a way of feeling connected to this continent, to combat the increasing isolation we were all feeling. Now lockdown is over but the shock remains and now more than ever it feels important to have a more responsive relationship with our extraordinary continent.
OUR VALUES
At the core of our values is a commitment to land conservation and minimising landfill. Our mission is to design culturally and environmentally meaningful pieces that are not connected to any specific design era, or fashion trend. The Bottomon will match any interior, will not date, and has collectible value. They are painstakingly designed and exquisitely crafted in Victoria. We want the Bottomons to be passed down through families as artefacts of geo-cultural belonging.
Dr. EMMA JACKSON
M.arch, Phd, Director
Emma is an architect that spent the first few decades of her career working in some of the most highly awarded Architecture firms in Australia. While working as an architect Emma continued to lecture in Design at RMIT Architecture. In 2014 she became a full time academic at RMIT and completed her PhD in 2019. Her PhD focussed on more responsive ways of building on Australia’s unique geology.
RILEY PELHAM-THORMAN
M.arch, Graduate of Architecture
Riley graduated from RMIT Architecture in 2021. While at RMIT he was a highly valued member of Emma’s PhD research team and an outstanding student. Riley’s Masters Major Project looked at how you design better community projects that address the natural ecologies and how the public want to engage with it.