CONSUME

2019

Awarded the Knox City Council Acquisition Prize, Immerse 2019

Consume is an installation that questions whether it would be possible to substitute some of the food we are accustomed to eating with native alternatives and if it would just take the right kind of marketing to make us more aware of these possibilities.

I was lucky enough to be selected a second time to participate in Knox City's public art festival, Immerse. This work was developed as a site specific piece to be hung in the windows facing the exit of a supermarket.

In the Knox City area, like most urban areas, there are numerous native edible and medicinal plants which are now at the risk of extinction. The people of the Kulin Nation have recognised and utilised many of these native plants for millennia, unfortunately, this knowledge has been mostly lost in post colonial times.

Manna Gum, Eucalyptus viminalis

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Food consumption and production have become a major environmental issue. The way we, as a society, farm and cultivate produce has resulted in an enormous amount of food waste, deforestation and salinisation of land. In addition, we have become accustomed to buy food from across the globe, these imports also have a great cost to the environment, as transport becomes a major contributor to emissions. Lately, there has been a positive effort towards buying and eating locally and seasonally, however, much of this food is non native and farmed-produce which does not naturally occur in our ecosystems and uses a lot of water fertilisers and effort to cultivate.

Australian Blackwood, Acacia melanoxylon

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Native Cherry, Exocarpos cupressiformis

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Native Leek, Bulbine bulbosa

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Native Currant, Coprosma quadrifida

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Kangaroo Apple, Solanum aviculare

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Prickly Geebung, Persoonia juniperina

2019

Watercolour on archival Paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Advertising exists in such prevalent force in our everyday lives, we absorb it almost subconsciously, we have been conditioned to recognise and react to certain familiar configurations, tag lines, colours and shapes. The tradition of botanic illustration has existed for centuries as a way of documenting exploratory findings. The combination of visual languages of contemporary marketing and historical illustration juxtaposes two separate eras of human knowledge and exploration. Generally, we are no longer accustomed to seeking things out in the physical world but rely heavily on advertising and media to feed us information. By using these visual cues to display images, this installation is suggesting the use of native plants as delicious and appealing groceries and highlights the immediate vulnerability of certain species which are currently at risk within the Knox City area.