emergent
snapshot
hot compost
You traditionally never owned a camera…
I had never been introduced to the world of photography. Even during my BFA it was never really about the camera. What I fell in love with were the endless possibilities of image-making with analogue processes. I loved the reactivity of silver to light, the alchemy of bringing an image to life in the darkroom.
Coming from a making background set in realism and planning, the ability of photography to embrace ‘imperfection’ and chance was so exciting. It felt like a collaboration between me and the emulsion. I’ve always been intrigued by artists who embrace materiality and chance in photographic processes, like Japanese photographer Daisuke Yokota. I’m drawn to this element of abstraction achieved through chance, whatever the medium.
What was the moment when your interests in botany and gardening collided with your art practice?
It was the first COVID lockdown. I discovered Donna Harraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene - and rediscovered my own garden. I saw the human-non-human dynamics present around us at all times. Yes, the garden was a place for growing pretty flowers. But it was also a shared ecosystem for learning and connection.
Pressing on with my degree during lockdown, I began making work with the garden - but without a camera. What could a piece of film register if it was integrated into such an organic system? Could this still be considered an image if a camera was not used? Simple burial experiments escalated to an almost science-like practice. How would the image change when introduced to a different part of the system? How would it differ depending on exposure time within said system? What role did heat or moisture play? What marks would a worm etch into the surface, and how was it different to the behaviours of other garden creatures? I was fuelled by a genuine curiosity for how this collaborative experience might manifest through photography…
Your MFA thesis talks about images created through a 'transworldly artist-garden partnership'. Break that down for us.
We’re in the realm of cameraless processes working with organic systems. These transform the way film can register an image or capture a moment. It's not replicating the human eye, it's creating a hybrid vision that's both human and non-human. For the first stage of my MFA, ‘Blight', I steeped the leaves of blighted tomato plants overnight to create a sludgy developer solution. I used it at first to develop unexposed film, creating brown, red and purple effects.
For the next stage, I began working with my garaged compost system, burying 4’ x 5’ film within, exposing some film for a few days and others a few weeks. I also evolved the organic developer solution concept, using compost runoff as well as selected garden trimmings.
In fact, the majority of my grad works were processed with this developer, which was then returned to the garden system as fertiliser. As the mind map shows, photographic sustainability efforts - the whole notion of cycles - were very much front of mind. Everything is interconnected in these cycles. It’s rewarding to explore this in photography, in both process and material.
This led to the ‘Hot Compost’ series. Did you expect this photographic result?
The three Hot Compost works were born of the microbial heat of a compost bin. They're the result of an experiment with the effects of this heat on film. From previous experiments I knew a certain system would register certain marks or colours. So in that sense I’d attempt to ‘curate’ the work. The Hot Compost works all had prominent magenta elements, a reaction between the temperature-sensitive film and the microbial heat generated from the centre of the bin. But to be honest the outcomes were fairly random.
I set up a pop-up darkroom in the garage over the compost bin and developed the film in complete darkness. Touch and smell are the crucial senses. Only once the film was chemically fixed could I take it into the light to see what I had. Even then, it’s inverted so it’s really not until scanner stage that you can see the result. So I do make a point of avoiding digital post-production, beyond scaling/cropping and odd dust removal. I’m interested in the genuine result recorded in the film. It’s a lot like tending a garden - a long term, largely invisible process.
Talk us through the later artistic decisions you made.
During COVID I bought myself a high quality film scanner. Zooming in and seeing all the detail was insane! Each work was a microcosm, almost like when you zoom into NASA pictures of space. These works definitely shine at large scale. You can take in the result as a whole from a distance and then walk closer and experience the work as a new thing. The works are large, really bonkers big. The more closely you look, the better it gets. I didn’t crop down the film. I wanted to see the result in full.
And then you encountered another ecosystem: the graduate show. What were the triumphs and challenges of having a near sell-out MFA show?
It was a whiplash thing. Intense! My works were acquired by both the National Art School archive - an archive of only 7000 works dating back to 1920 - and the City of Sydney for its contemporary art collection, which features some of Australia’s leading artists. On the one hand, people were fascinated by these abstract, otherworldly portals. On the other, analogue photographers came up to me and said they had no idea how I'd achieved these images.
You finish your degree on this big high of the grad show and submitting your thesis, essentially submitting your life for the past two years to be judged, and then that's it – you’re in the ‘real world’ now. All this attention in such a short period of time. It was overwhelming. But an honour to experience.
For me, I'm proud that despite not having a photography or science background, I pursued these experimental ideas that were only really formed at the start of my MFA. That I dedicated myself to the process and seeing it through. I'm very grateful to the NAS, where students are encouraged to explore and develop their practice.
What happens next for you? What are your artistic preoccupations now?
I’ve got a show coming up at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney – Artisans in the Gardens 2024. I’m showing five works made in collaboration with an Australian mangrove forest, in response to the Gardens' mangrove ecosystem protection and restoration initiatives. It’s a new body of work exploring new processes of collaboration and new ways of making and presentation. (See The Guardians, below.) I'm amazed by how my work changes as I collaborate with different systems.
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I’ve always wanted to intertwine conservation/ sustainability/ eco-activism with my art-making. I’d love to work closely with organisations to raise awareness towards eco-initiatives within Australia. The Gardens do fantastic and important work towards plant conservation, ecosystem regeneration and sustainability and a portion of the proceeds from this show will go towards helping the Gardens make a difference.
For those who are interested, these books are fundamental in understanding the importance of caring for our non-human kin:
Generally speaking, I’m hoping my practice becomes more prolific. I can slowly feel myself becoming consumed by it all and I’m so excited. For my COVID-era MFA, the garden was my key collaborator. Now it feels like I'm collaborating with the whole world.
