Banner and Badge by Melissa Cameron at Rockingham Arts Centre

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Melissa Cameron

The banner and the badge are traditional forms of protest signage and adornment. They are the natural ancestors of these works, the first of which was created soon after I relocated to Seattle in 2012. 

Invited to an exhibition inspired by badges, or the American term, buttons, I made the BanStopSaveFightSolve works. Combining the calls to action of common protest badges, like ‘save the whale’, or ‘ban the bomb’, they were an observation about the nuance lost when feelings of empathy, support and solidarity are boiled down to abrupt word-symbols.
With hindsight, this focus on language is emblematic of my early days in the USA. I was through the looking glass and on the Seattle side, meanings had flipped, leaving me to decode messages not from language, but context cues. Used to the influence of American culture in Australia, I was surprised to find myself feeling culture shock.

My works of this time on display – parts of the Escalation, body/politic and resist series – show that rather than assimilate the terms, and perhaps even the values of my hosts, I was guided by my gaps in understanding. Where I saw a zig, but would have myself made a zag, was to me an area ripe for the picking, or rather, unpicking.
In my research I burrowed many tunnels, and in them unearthed stories I could tell. For each I sourced the material and motifs, and invented forms, colours and mnemonic devices to best convey these learnings to a viewer, always tailoring works to the body to amplify the connection between my narratives, and their real-life outcomes.

The rapid and unrelenting march of the climate crisis has occupied my works in recent years. Since 2023, I have repeated the same message: “…rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.” IPCC 2023, taken from the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I have encoded part or all the ‘rapidly’ text in ten works and counting. 

Throughout my career I have leveraged the form and histories of recycled materials to buttress and sometimes become the message of my pieces. Since 2023, I have worked to recreate earlier forms exclusively from postconsumer waste and road debris, to further affirm the message of the ‘rapidly’ series.


Gallery opening times: Wednesday to Sunday: 10 am – 4 pm
Opening Event and Artist talk: Saturday 3 May 2025 4 pm - 6 pm. Register HERE