Featuring invited artists: Kylie Caldwell, Tilly Hewett, Helle Jorgensen, Chieko Klerkx, Emily Lubitz, Shellie Morris, Selena Murray, Nini Nahri Galis, Kate Ratner, Sue Simpson, Jennifer Williams
Mnemonic Vegetables helps us “remember” our connection to the plant world, Mother Earth and each other.
This project has been developed through residencies at the Tropical Indigenous Ethnobotany Centre at James Cook University, Cairns; GoctaLab-Amazonas, Peru and various locations in Mexico; and with the participation of invited guest artists. The result is a multi-layered sharing of plant knowledge, creative practices, materials and process.
Mnemonic Vegetables is an exhibition in two parts; combining the work of Ed Horne’s large-scale outdoor memory circle, The Balancing Act, located in the Lismore Quadrangle; and wall works, installation, multi-channel video, community workshops, performance and exchanges by Charlotte Haywood and invited artists.
The works look at multi-modal mnemonics, or memory devices, through our relationships to story, mythologies, melodies, dance, landscapes, the plant kingdom, ecologies and ourselves. In this way, the artists create a shared space for reverence and remembrance of our connection to the plant world, the living planet and each other.
Ed Horne and Charlotte Haywood would like to thank Nina Ambjerg-Pedersen, Sarah Bolt, Wade Davis, Kat Hope, Lynne Kelly, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Nicolai Kraus, Pania Edmonds, Valley Lipcer, Hamish McCormick, Leni McCormick, Sinem Saban, Gerry Turpin, Lauren Tynan, Tyson Yunkaporta and Tess O’Reilly.
The artists acknowledge that works and materials are exhibited and made on the lands of the Widjabul-Wyabul, the greater Bundjalung Nation, Kunwinjku and Githabul peoples; the continuous Traditional Custodians maintaining Land and Culture; and that sovereignty was never ceded. Materials have been sought to honour seeding + sustaining positive earth relationships. They have either been harvested and processed locally (Wilsons Creek, North Tumbulgum, Brunswick Heads, Lennox Head, Main Arm, Woodburn) or received through fair trade with responsible harvesting and processing from Gunbalanya community, Arnhem Land, Araliya Community Company, Sri Lanka, and Yucatán, Mexico. The felled trees for The Balancing Act were part of fire mitigation and will be continually honoured through further artworks and activations.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Digital collage original sources: henequen (agave fourcroydes) fibre- Yucatán, Mexico. Ixim (Zea mays) Chiapas, Mexico. Banana (Musa acuminate) petiole- North Tumbulgum, NSW. Australian fishtail palm (Caryota albertii) seeds- Wilsons Creek, NSW. Historical Ambulance Station- Brunswick heads, NSW.
Further viewing and readings:
1. Gerry Turpin: Mbabaram Elder and Senior Ethnobotanist at the Tropical Indigenous Ethnobotany Centre, James Cook University, Cairns
Gerry Turpin: A Bridge Between Two Worlds, TEDX JCU CAIRNS, Nov 26, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE7KKBC1vMM
2. Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta: Bama and Senior Lecturer Indigenous Knowledges- Deakin University, Melbourne
Tyson Yunkaporta: Superpowers: Airborn https://www.printcouncil.org.au/superpowers-1-airborn/
3. Robin Wall Kimmerer: Citizen of Potawatomi Nation, Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Centre for Native People and the Environment https://www.esf.edu/nativepeoples/
4. Dr. Lynne Kelly: Honorary Research Associate La Trobe University, Melbourne
Lynne Kelly, The Memory Code, 2016
5. Dr. Wade Davis: BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk, Professor of Anthropology Faculty Associate Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia
Dr. Wade Davis-Anthropology &Ethnobotany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97sHG04iFWs
