Kombumerri Country (Gold Coast)
Carer Team
September 26, 2023
Sewing the Seeds
"Sewing the Seeds imagines a future where our garments are imbedded with native grass seeds, utilising the human body as a collaborator and seed spreader as they move through their daily life. Regenerating grasslands and acting as agents in carbon sequestration.
Sewn into the garment are seeds of kangaroo, top scented and barbed-wire grasses grown by the artist.
Introduced grasses have subsumed the complex bioregions of native grasslands here in so called Australia. Covering the landscape in a blanket of endless rhizomes of mono cultured pasture. Davies explores personal and imagined future memories of place to resew grasslands into the fabric of abandoned sites of extraction. Moving through the disused site allowing seeds to fall in the process. [Merinda Davies, 2023]
Installation
Materials:
- Garments, grass seeds, soil, 5-8 photographs printed on cotton rag A4 - A1 and video projection.
- sculptural garments made to fit artist and hung, circle of soil below garments on floor, series of photographic prints 5-8 unframed to be pinned, film projection, speakers.
- native seed heads and stalks collected from native grasses grown during the initial care process at HOTA, Home of the Arts.
Measurements:
Variable
The project carer in the Gold Coast region was artist Merinda Davies. She cared for two grass gardens: a small one located in her studio (alongside her groundbreaking 'Conversations with the Forest' project), and the other in full public view outside of HOTA (Home the Arts Gallery) at Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast. Merinda's studio Interweaver allowed her a personal space for her reflective engagement with the grasses over her time as Gold Coast Grassland community of Care, carer. In September 2023 she completed an installation work based upon her experiences. (For more details see 'Artworks' tab).
This site of the project has also been further supported by gallery partner HOTA (Home of the Arts) (with special thanks to public programs Sam Creyton and Tessa Bergan) and a Gold Coast RADF grant. Seeds were supplied by Native Seeds Pty.
Merinda planted Kangaroo Grass, Silky Blue, Barbed Wire and Top Scented - endemic grasses suited to her local Country/bioregion.
(b.1991) is an artist using performance, movement, installation and conversation to question the current structural paradigm of inequality. Her work is inspired by the environment, human and non-human social structures and the possibilities available to us in future imaginings. Her practice aims to find clarity and connection in the external world through deep listening, observation, and research into the emotional and physical states in our internal worlds. She grew up on Bundjalung Country in Northern NSW, and is currently living on Kombumerri Country in the Yugambeh region of South East QLD. Merinda’s solo and collaborative projects have most recently been commissioned by the Institute of Modern Art, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, City of Gold Coast, Outer Space and The Walls Artspace. She is currently an artist in Generate GC, an initiative between City of Gold Coast and Situate Art in Festivals. Connect with Merinda via her website and Instagram feed.
Carbon_Dating is an experimental artwork designed to seed ‘consensual’ partnerships between Australian native grasses and humans, based upon their shared need to breathe each other’s ‘exhaled’ air.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the many lands on which we live, work and create, including our collaborators on Yirrganydji, Barunggam, Jagera/Yuggera, Turbal, Ugarapul, Jinibara, Kabi Kabi and Kombumerri Country. We acknowledge their ongoing connection and custodianship for Country. We pay our deep respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We recognise First Nations people as the first artists and scientists. Always was, always will be.
The 2024-5 Carbon_Dating exhibition tour is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts QueenslandAssisted by QUT School of Creative Practice, International Art Services (IAS), Native Seeds Pty Ltd, Artfully, and Embodied Media.
Between 2019-23 this project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. It was also supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF). The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government: Cairns Regional Council; Western Downs Regional Council; City of Gold Coast Council; Somerset Regional Council; and ArtsCoast as part of Sunshine Coast Council’s RADF program to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
Thanks also to QUT (School of Creative Practice, QUT Office of eResearch and Samford Ecological Research Facility). NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns; Dogwood Crossing Gallery, Miles; HOTA, Gold Coast; The Condensery, Toogooloowah; Caloundra Regional Gallery, Caloundra; Native Seeds Pty Ltd and ReBul Packaging.
