SELECTABILITY
BOWEN, QLD
BELONGING THROUGH DIFFERNECE
Stories of identity, belonging and community, ‘Belonging Through Difference’ is a collaborative narrative totem piece showcasing the journeys of our artists through the creative process.
CASE STUDY: COLLABORATIVE TOTEM ARTWORK PROJECT
about the program
The Collaborative Totem Artwork Project unfolded over ten weeks as a facilitated creative arts program for Selectability Bowen, resulting in a sculptural submission for the organisation’s 30-Year Milestone Exhibition. Designed to explore personal interpretations of home, care, connection and community, the project invited recipients to create individual boxes that would ultimately stack into a collective totem installation. The workshops emphasised process over perfection, authentic storytelling, and the belief that community is formed through layers of lived experience; distinct, overlapping and deeply human.
Each recipient produced artwork that reflects their personal journey, making the creative space a place where stories surfaced through colour, texture, conversation and reflection, where creativity offered a way to contribute and connect.
Early sessions focused on discovering personal visual language. Recipients traced and re-interpreted magazine images, explored rapid pattern studies, and experimented with colour and mark-making. These exercises encouraged instinctive choices and opened conversations about how art can express feeling, memory and identity. Gradually, each recipient began shaping a style that felt natural to them.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
This artist’s journey became one of the project’s most striking transformations. He began with strict precision; rulers, straight lines, measured order, echoing his history building motors, where everything must fit perfectly. Letting go of perfection was difficult at first, but as the weeks progressed, he began experimenting freely, taking risks and generating ideas on his own. His Rubik’s Cube design became a metaphor for his life: countless combinations, constant change, and the ability to shift and adapt. He went on to create two additional boxes, one celebrating the cars and motors he built and raced, and another filled with free-flowing patterns that “just came to him one day,” painted in acrylics with tie-dye softness and organic edges. His work became a visual record of loosening, opening, and rediscovering play.
This artist embraced chaos with enthusiasm. Drawn to mess, texture and the physicality of making, Joey worked with pastels, blending, smudging and creating unpredictable marks that appear when materials are allowed to behave freely. Their boxes became a celebration of movement and energy, a visual expression of leaning into the unknown and seeing what emerges.
This artist’s story unfolded quietly. Initially shy, she gravitated toward soft pastel colours, pinks and purples that make her feel happy. She coloured entire surfaces at first, staying within familiar boundaries. As her confidence grew, she began experimenting
with two-tone palettes, layering stickers, arranging shapes and colours with increasing intention. Her voice grew alongside her artwork; she began asking for help and participating more within the group. Her cubes radiate gentleness, joy and the comfort of repetition.
This artist’s process was thoughtful, layered and introspective. She explored the tension between inner thoughts and external perception, creating “both sides” of herself and her community through handwritten words, colour and layout. Working in stages, she built meaning through layers of tape, paint and text, both painful and encouraging words written openly, then partially obscured, allowing a bleed through to emerge. Her cube became a meditation on balance and the ways we, the community, are shaped by both our own experiences and the quietly loud voices around us.
*Please note that artist names and faces are not shown to protect their privacy.This artist’s artwork centred around her daughter, who has passed away. Her reflections and imagery became a way of honouring love, loss and memory. Standing as a powerful tribute within the totem, Dee’s work reminds viewers that care and connection often include grief, and that community holds space for those stories too.
This artist’s early exercises revealed a natural eye for composition and colour, bringing a quiet visual curiosity into the creative space. Karen’s contribution reflects the joy she finds in creativity, challenging herself to slow down to explore colour, balance and placement.
This artist contributed both to her artwok and a deeply personal three-page written reflection, offering rich insight into her faith, culture, family and symbolism. In her essay she wrote about Australia, the beauty of nature, birds and crosses, and the lamb as a symbol of Christ, weaving together heritage, gratitude and the religious values that shape her life. These reflections informed her artwork, which carries the same spiritual warmth and sense of identity. Together, her writing and her cube added a contemplative, literary voice to the project, showing how creativity can emerge not only through paint and materials, but through memory, belief and story.
THE OUTCOME
As the weeks progressed, the studio became a place where participants worked independently while naturally sharing ideas, asking questions and encouraging one another on their works. Some gravitated toward bold colour, others toward texture, pattern or symbolism, but each artwork ultimately grew into a personal reflection of identity, belonging and the themes explored throughout the program.
The final body of work brings these individual stories together. Fourteen cubes, stacked into three totems, form a collective artwork that reflects the layered nature of community, how identity, care, connection and shared experience build upon one another. It stands as a portrait of Bowen’s recipients, shaped by their hands, memories and perspectives.
Across the duration of the program, recipients developed creative skills, confidence and a deeper sense of belonging. Selectability Bowen’s submission offers an authentic, participant-led visual documentation of connection and community. Most importantly, the project created a space for individuals to explore who they are, how they connect, and how