Companion Planting: an exhibition curated by Jack Robins
The image of a city overgrown by nature is a recurring theme in western writing, film and art. It's as though we understand nature as an uncontrollable force and yet in small ways, such as in suburban gardens, we endeavour to control it, creating mini islands amongst the concrete jungle.
Photograph courtesy of Jack Robins
As the sprawl of suburbia encroaches on the undeveloped landscape, there is a perception that humans are increasingly detached from the natural world. Nature, however, is not far away. As their habitat is increasingly reduced by human expansion, native plants and animals can be found not only on the periphery but also within these man-made ‘natures’. We see kangaroos feeding on suburban lawns, peregrine falcons nesting on city buildings and endangered plants thriving on roadside verges, as nature utilizes our 'civilized' world for its gains, slowly growing over and adapting to the things we create. This could be regarded as a form of companion planting - of nature with the man-made - as the 'natural' world gains a foothold in our front yards and left over spaces.
Companion Planting, an exhibition curated for the CAST gallery, explores such symbiotic relationships. The works in the exhibition touch on the spaces made between people and plants, city and nature. Suburbia is a fertile space for the germination of such spaces, it's the place where remnants of the wilderness and city intersect and overlap. The common theme of cultural spaces (the suburb, the home) cohabiting with the natural world becomes apparent in the works of the five selected artists. In examining the crossover of nature with the man-made, Lucy Bleach's sculpture touches on our relentless and ever-present need to urbanise the natural landscape. Her works question our desire to organise and redefine the world around us, and highlight the motives and desires inherent within these actions. Amanda Shone's sculptures are made from a combination of found objects and materials. In her practice she treads a fine line between the conscious and the subconscious, but insistently produces sculptures that highlight systems of growth and the metaphysical processes that support and sustain life. Similarly, Michelle Cangiano, a Melbourne based jeweller, makes pressed-metal plant forms that grow and merge with their surrounding space, and create an impression of a symbiotic relationship with architectural structures and the body.
Extending beyond the personal and into the public domain, Dean Chatwin’s sculptural practice focuses on the periphery of the urban landscape and charts the steady march of suburbia across the land. Chatwin's art makes poetic statements on the folly of urban planning within much of Australia's suburban areas by comparing the spread of urban infrastructure with plant growth. Correspondingly, Raef Sawford's videos focus on the detritus of humanity, the consumerist mentality that pervades modern cities and the species that colonise our disused spaces. Using time-lapse imagery to craft scenes of different time scales, he creates ambiguous montages of the ubiquitous suburban home, shipping ports, rubbish tips.
Through the combination of works in this exhibition, I aim to generate discussion around our place within the environment, how we are affected by it and how we affect it. From the suburban street to the urban thoroughfare, this exhibition aims to highlight our proximity to nature and the residual areas between the spaces we create.
Jack Robins is 2008 Emerging Curator for CAST, a role he takes up as part of CAST’s ongoing mentoring programme. The exhibition Companion Planting will open 23rd May, and run until 15th June.