Profile

Penne Thornton is a multidisciplinary creative producer working across performance, exhibitions, public programming, artist development and community engagement.
Penne has a research focus on collaborative, place-based practice and is an advocate for social justice and equity in the arts.





Image by Leiko Manalang-Frequin



Email
pennethornton(at)gmail.com


Select Projects

>A People’s Guide to (North) Geelong
>Duwa
>Anything & Everything
>WiCLA


Platform Arts Projects

Performance
>Death Warmed Up
>Texture of Absence
>Paradise Lots
>Slip
>The Director
>Bodies of Water
>Maps of the Heart
>Pictures and Ghosts

Artist Development >Neighbourhood LAB
>infinity ensemble
>金山 婆 Gold Mountain Wife
 

Publications

> Collective Mothering
> Local Word

---

Collective Mothering

Publication

Ed. Amber Smith with Amelia Wallin, Sarah Jones, Briony Galligan + Abbra Kotlarczyk, Emma Michaelis, Hayley Millar Baker, Lillian O’Neil, Pauline Rotsaert and
Penne Thornton

Saddle stitched, risograph publication printed + bound by Ranch Pressing (AU) with original hand drawn covers by Otto Opus Don-Smith.

53 pages
Edition of 40
ISBN 978-1-7636302-2-2

Supported by Platform Arts
2025 Ranch Pressing

In a time marked by ecological crisis, climate change, global conflict, and the instability of late-stage capitalism, matrilineal and maternal models of care offer vital, alternative ways of imagining continuity, resilience, and collective well-being. They provide a blueprint for rethinking relationships—not only between people, but also with the environment and future generations. They also propose systems and ways of being that sit outside of capitalist, consumerist, and Western models of thinking. Collective Mothering discusses these ideas, proposing potential models for connecting communities by creating sites for dialogue, companionship, sharing, and ultimately collective care...

 I acknowledge the life systems of land, river, sea and atmosphere and the Waddawurrung people’s as the First People’s on whose sacred Country I live. This land was never ceded. I give respect to all First Nations people’s, their elders and rising generations