Botanica Exotica: Unknown Civilisations

Botanica Exotica: Unknown Civilisations features a new body of works that are inspired by walks through Naarm/Melbourne’s parks and botanical gardens within a 5km radius from my home under the COVID lockdowns. These walks became a daily ritual and escape. The predictability and rigidity of the gardens’ formal design led me to examine the disrupters with the Victorian design construct: the messy, un-beautiful, untamed and unintentional.

Captivated by the visual dialogue between exotic and native plant life, I was particularly taken by the often overlooked elements and tensions that coexistence presents: oozing resins and gums, scars and disfigurements caused by invasive micro-organisms, parasitic plants and exotic fungi. The unwanted guests. The vessels featured in this exhibition are manifestations of my botanical observations and provoke imaginings of what lies beneath the surface: the complex unseen networks that form ‘the unknown civilisations’. By inviting the viewer to challenge the disposability of everyday objects, Botanica Exotica: Unknown Civilisations asks us to consider the waste we create and reflect on our interactions with nature.