Swimming Upstream

South Sydney Uniting Church is hosting Swimming Upstream, a stunning visual arts installation and story telling supporting Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA).

Thousands of hand woven origami fish will be hanging in the church and personal stories have been prepared for presentation by the very talented Alana Valentine, (who has been in Dublin to receive the prestigious 5th Stage International Script Competition 1st prize for best new play about Science and Technology for “Ear to the Edge of Time”).

“The telling of stories and weaving together of communities helps us unite in bringing messages of hope and recovery. The Swimming Upstream Installation and Presentation will be a symbolic act of letting go of the stories, making them public, weaving them into the fabric of life and community and locating them in a context of many other survivors also doing the same thing.”

The notion of fish swimming upstream — swimming against the current and therefore struggling against powerful forces pushing them the other way, but, nevertheless, eventually making it upstream, prevailing against the negative strength of the current and finally making their way forward — is a metaphor for life.

Using ribbon to weave the fish links with the tangled knot symbol used by ASCA for Blue Knot day and taking the tangled thread and weaving it into something more beautiful and functional in some small way is very powerful.

The launch and story telling is on Saturday November 3 from 3 pm to 6 pm, 56a Raglan Street Waterloo.

The exhibition is open until December 20.

Photo: Isabella Moore