Orange Botanic Garden: Saturday outing

Gabriella emailed me these images: the works in the casuarina forest have been disturbed. Hannah and Joanna gathered the ends and tied and tucked them back into the gauze. They have become part of the Gathering, experiencing the feel of the gauze. Normally Hannah and Joanna would not have touched the work, I hope they enjoyed working with the gauze. The nature of the gauze is fragile, like our natural environment. The gauze can be leaned against gently, (only stretching it a little) if you are sensitive to the material. Go too far and it can break. It can be repaired, new patterns becoming established. Even with complete remaking it would not return to the original, it would have similar characteristics but always different, inconsistent.

Insiteout: Orange Botanic Garden, New South Wales, Australia

Tuesday 23 October, 2007
Installed 'Eco tone' at Insiteout

Thank you to all the people who participated in the installation, artists, Aileen Francis, Ros Auld and visitors to the garden from Canberra, Tara, Luke and their Dad. Tracy Sorenson recorded video footage. ‘Ecotone’ became another gathering of people joined together by a length of gauze. We each felt the softness of the material. We experienced working in a cooperative group. A rhythm is established, with the stretching, cutting and rolling to prepare the gauze and then with the passing of the gauze from one person to another during the installation. We shared associations and stories of place, families and journeys.

‘Ecotone’ was installed in a casuarina forest. It emphasises the difference between different ecological communities.

An ecotone is a transition area between two adjacent ecological communities or ecosystems. It may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line.

The plantings in the garden generally fit into the second category having ‘a sharp boundary line.’ When bushwalking I have often wished to camp in an allocasuarina forest but they are generally situated on the top of a ridge, a long way from a water source. The floor of this forest is covered with needles, springy under the foot. As the wind brushes through the needles on the trees they talk, becoming ‘the talkative casuarinas’. They provide food for the endangered ‘Glossy black cockatoo’, that’s the one with the red/orange band on the tail.