Garland Membership Award.
UNSETTLED LIVING.
My grandparents said to never buy a house near a willow tree.
They said its roots weep as the branches do.
Tendrils seek the pipes, entangle themselves in the foundations.
Fighting blindly for life,
as a desperate child grips its’ mother
and drags them both beneath.
It is difficult in western culture to process ecological grief without the same structures that exist for human death.
When a local reserve is flattened to make way for a golf course, or a beloved tree is cut down, and the fish I once counted as a child begin to disappear, I turn to art as solace. Through sewing, drawing, animating, and photographing disappearing species and irreversibly changed places, I put my faith in the power of memorialisation.
Unsettled Living examines ideas surrounding re-animation in response to ongoing attempts by scientists to ‘resurrect’ the thylacine. Through using common, often introduced flowers to create imitations of critically endangered and potentially extinct lutruwitan/Tasmanian orchids, I consider invisible biodiversity losses, reflecting on the echoes of species that have since been forgotten and replaced through colonisation. These re-animated figures become haunted amalgamations of what has grown to obscure their loss.
Venerated Creatures is an instinctive exploration of the separation of human and environment in colonial Australia. Through charcoal renderings of masks inspired by endangered lutruwitan/Tasmanian animals, strange creatures emerge.
