Portfolio

Installation

Adaptation I (Makoura Catchment Arrangement, 2019) takes form as an inventory of selected botanical specimens and found objects sourced from the streams and tributaries that feed into the Makoura Stream Catchment in Masterton, Aotearoa (New Zealand). The work consists of approximately 400 individual organic and non-organic specimens, many of them collected thanks to the generous cooperation by a community of residents, landowners, businesses and organisations who love and care for the streams that run through their gardens.

The exploded herbarium display plants and found objects alike that frame and inhabit these streams, producing a pseudo-scientific tool that at once blur and sharpen our focus on our environment, our waterways, and our consumer culture.  

The beauty, variety of plant specimens, and the overwhelming majority of the exotics and weeds invite the viewer to scrutinise and consider the environmental history of the waterways, while the introduction of the the shiny and colourful chocolate and ice cream wrappers, dirty single use plastics, and other man made objects and waste, provide a sobering insight into what goes into our streams today.