An artist development initiative, Transcriptions, presented a community-driven arts program supporting 22 emerging creatives from Melbourne’s western suburbs. Anchored by themes of personal truth and collective storytelling, Transcriptions was led by Annette Wagner and mentored by acclaimed artist James Nguyen. Participating artists drew on family records, official archives, and oral histories to explore what lies between the lines, what’s been redacted, mistranslated, or deliberately erased, crafting provocative new works that reframed identity, memory, and migration.

The program culminated in a multi-site public exhibition across Wyndham City and Hobsons Bay. Presented by Wunder Gym and Melbourne Fringe Festival at Louis Joel Gallery.

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My grandmother and great-grandmother were known for their remedies and their intuition. They were women who knew the land intimately, who taught my mother which herbs could heal, and how to speak to the wind and the trees. Their knowledge was passed down through stories, gestures, and feeling.  

Honey Stone draws on the energy of Polish amber: healing, protective, and radiant with ancestral knowledge. Amber has long been understood as a bridge between worlds. It carries the essence of time and memory, and connects past to present. 

When light activates the work, it becomes a moment of meditation and connection between the physical and the spiritual. This quiet invocation reaches across time to connect with the women of my maternal line, as something alive, moving through me.

Honey Stone is a vessel of warmth, a gesture of love and healing, a symbol of protection and a longing for connection. A calling home.