Sarah Parkes knots and weaves narratives of place and home into her sculptural rope works, creating a personal topography of her life and surroundings. Dialogues of care, comfort and the domestic are interwoven with explorations of place and the natural world.
Melbourne Design Week 2024
Verdant
An exhibition in collaboration with Minaal Lawn held at the Abbotsford Convent for MDW
Tidal - Group Exhibition
Little Oberon
A group exhibition exploring our coastline and the spaces in between
Rope:
Polyester rope, acrylic house paint
Future Comfort
Kloke X Smalltown X Roopacorp Collaboration
Shown as part of Melbourne Design Week 2026, Future Comfort is a collaboration between Kloke, Sarah Parkes (Smalltown), and joiner Roopacorp. A project about reworking waste through craft, ingenuity, and a shared belief in making things differently.
Rope:
Kloke remnant fabric and Roopacorp timber offcuts
Criss Cross Exhibition
Lon Gallery, Point Lonsdale
CRISSCROSS describes both the mix of work in the exhibition and the way I approach my practice. The show brings together works made at different times, using a range of materials and techniques. I often move between these, crossing from one material or process to another. The title also refers to patterns and intersecting lines, seen in the woven silage and knotted rope. These crossing points are where things shift - where waste materials become useful or beautiful again, and where art meets agriculture, and the natural meets the human-made.
Rope:
Mixed media, salvage silage wrap, polyester rope, acrylic house paint
Image credit:
Ginger & Mint
Bacchus Exhibition, 2026
Group exhibition at Fleet Winery
The artworks respond to Fleet in a distinct way, from the red earth where the grapes are grown, through fermentation, to ritual celebration, the human condition and our relationship to cultivation.
Where wine is often cast as a signifier of the divine and wealthy, this exhibition insists on its origins in labour, process and impermanence, giving new meaning to Fleet’s preoccupation with ‘capturing those fleeting moments’.
Size:
Each piece approx 3200mmx 1900mm
Rope:
Reclaimed silage wrap and hay bale netting
Image credit:
Karli Duckett
150 Lonsdale St Business Lounge
Feature ceiling artwork installation
Melbourne Cup 2024 Pavilion
Gallery of Extraordinary Flowers
Installation commissioned by Moth Design for a pavilion at the Melbourne Cup
Rope:
Reclaimed silage wrap
Image credit:
Albert Comper
The Colour of Distance, Faux Gallery
Group exhibition
In this group show, four regional artists explore new meaning in their work as they translate change and investigate personal narratives of desire, longing, isolation and transformation.
Rope:
Polyester rope, house paint, re-purposed silage wrap
(it's no) drama, Stasis
Collaboration on production Stasis with physical theatre ensemble (it's no) drama
Image credit:
Lauren Murphy
Hyatt Regency Zephyr Bar, Sydney
Rooftop bar screen
Rope:
polyester rope, stainless turnbuckles
Hyatt Regency Sydney
Hotel foyer bar and dining area
Size:
2 x 11m(W) x 4.5m(H), 1 x 34m(W) x 1m(H)
Rope:
10 & 12mm polyester doublebraid rope
Image credit:
Rodrigo Vargas
Westfield Bondi Junction, Sydney
Harbour Room
Size:
Pendant lights: up to 1200mm(Dia), Pot Hangings: 800mm(Dia)
Rope:
10 mm & 6mm poyester doublebraid rope
Image credit:
Scentre Group
Convessa Concavo
Apartment Tower, Docklands, Australia
Size:
Size: Foyer 10m(W) x 3m(H) & Windows 2.5m(W) x 3m(H) (x2)
Rope:
Rope: 12mm & 6mm Braided polyester rope, black
Image credit:
Sean Fennessy
Mezz Restaurant
Chadstone Shopping Centre
Size:
2 x 4500mm(H) x 12000mm(L)
Rope:
12mm polyester doublebraid rope
All work copyright © Smalltown 2014
