Limits

This year I exhibited a new body of work titled 'Limits' at Yarta Purtli Cultural Centre, South Australia. Hinging off two residencies I undertook in the remote Gammon Ranges in 2022-23, the works have an ecological focus on what is an incredibly diverse bioregion. My underlying idea was to get some sort of understanding of environmental condition. The area is wooded in many parts - definitely a 'treescape' - but I am wondering - what defines a forest?

My previous body of work 2020-22 looked at fire and fire history within tall forested landscapes - exploring the idea of ecosystem recovery and resilience in the face of increasingly severe bushfires. The Gammon Ranges doesn't carry fire in the same way, rather it suffers from major heat events instead, which can devastate the more exposed areas.

Some text from the exhibition...

'Like many parts of arid Australia, the Gammon Ranges experience long term boom-bust weather cycles. Years of dramatically higher rainfall trigger pulses of vegetation growth that benefit the entire food chain – from insects to frogs, reptiles to mammals. These exuberant periods of growth may be followed by periods of very low rainfall and sometimes droughts lasting as long as a decade.

Yet this seemingly timeless country is now also subject to increasing pressures from a warming climate. In witnessing the aftereffects of extreme heat events, the baking and dieback that has occurred across the region in recent years, it is clear that this astonishing and unique bioregion exists at the very limits of its ecological range. The relatively cooler valleys and chasms are refuges that offer a retreat for many species from the scorching temperatures of the more exposed terrain.

Much like the Great Barrier Reef, or alpine plant and animal communities, the unique aspects and the isolation of the Gammon Ranges means that with further extreme heat events anticipated, these unique natural ecosystems will have nowhere to go'.

The image below illustrates this effect. Both works depict the Callitris (native pine), either thriving within the protection of a gorge or in retreat/dying back in the open areas.