Keziah Craven, Janulous, 2026. Image courtesy of the artist
Keziah Craven
Embodied Trauma: Exploring Performance and Wearable Art as a Visual and Tactile Language for Sexual Assault Survivors.
Gallery 1
Opening Thursday 2 July, 2026, 6-8pm
Friday 3 July - Sunday 26 July
This exhibition showcases the creative outcomes of Keziah Craven’s PhD research project, Embodied Trauma: Exploring Performance and Wearable Art as a Visual and Tactile Language for Sexual Assault Survivors. Approved by the University of Canberra’s Human Research Ethics Committee (14457), the project creates a visual dialogue that brings visibility to the lived experiences of survivors.
Working collaboratively with individuals who self‑identify as having experienced sexual assault, Craven supported participants in translating aspects of their trauma into sculptural forms. These forms have been incorporated into, or have inspired, the wearable art garments made from both handmade and commercial papers. Shown here off the body as standalone sculptural works, the pieces invite viewers to engage with their materiality, symbolism, and emotional resonance in a contemplative setting.
Nudibranchs have also informed the conceptual and aesthetic foundations of this project. These sea slugs are not poisonous in themselves; instead, they absorb toxins from their predators and store them within their cerata, transforming external harm into a defence mechanism. This biological process mirrors the ways survivors consciously and subconsciously develop their own strategies for protection in response to trauma. Their vivid colours, rhythmic forms, and repetitive structures have become a reparative aesthetic within the garments—an embodiment of resilience, transformation, and the capacity to transmute what was once harmful into something protective, expressive, and beautifully alive.
The exhibition examines how wearable art can give trauma a tangible presence while also functioning as a therapeutic process through which survivors reclaim their bodies, voices, and agency. Through this exploration, Embodied Trauma contributes to a deeper understanding of the transformative potential of wearable art in trauma recovery.
*This exhibition may contain references to themes of (SA) that some viewers may find distressing*
About the Artist
Keziah Craven is a Melbourne‑based interdisciplinary visual artist and PhD candidate at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on creating a visual and tactile language of trauma, using embodied storytelling to translate lived experience into sculptural form through wearable art and performance. Her practice engages themes of birth and death, domestic abuse, homelessness, trauma, and the mapping of the human body, spanning large installations, intimate objects, prints, and body‑based sculpture.
Keziah graduated with First Class Honours from the ANU School of Art & Design in 2019. She has exhibited in both solo and group shows across Canberra, Sydney, and Melbourne, in Sculpture Bermagui, and online internationally. She has been a finalist in the Australian Wearable Art Festival, the ANU School of Art Drawing Prize, and the M16 Artspace Drawing Prize. She is an active member of Papermakers of Victoria, Textile Art Community Art Space, Naarm Textile Collective, and Regional Arts Victoria. Craven has been selected as one of thirty‑four finalists in this year’s upcoming Paper on Skin Gala in Tasmania.