An impressive artwork on display at the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize in 2022 is Notes on Chenopodium erosum + Spyridium fontis-woodi, pigment, ink, pencil on rag paper.
Adelaide based artists Louise Flaherty and Laura Wills collaborated on these beautiful and thought-provoking drawings, part of a larger project called Plant Notes. Plant Notes was created for the Guildhouse Collections Project to research threatened plants at the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre and Adelaide Botanic Gardens.
Louise and Laura joined National Archives to tell us more about their work.
Notes on Chenopodium erosum + Spyridium fontis-woodi, pigment, ink, pencil on rag paper
Hi Louise and Laura! Plant Notes features 8 different threatened plant species. You’ve noted it was hard to narrow it down to 8 plants, from over 1,000 threatened species. What is special about Chenopodium erosum and Spyridium fontis-woodii?
Louise: We mostly chose them because these were plants that we came across in our research during the Guildhouse Collections Project with the Botanic Gardens of South Australia. I was particularly interested in the Chenopodium because it had a really interesting story – it came up as a fire ephemeral plant after the 2019/2020 Kangaroo Island bushfires. It had not been seen for 50 years.
Laura: I have ‘got to know’ Spyridium. In the creation of the work Spyridium Community I drew the Spyridium that is from South Australia, about 23 species. This was a unique period of observation, noticing the subtle differences in shape of leaves and textures. Going through this research process enabled me to then identify Spyridium in the wild. When I saw it and recognised it for the first time on a regular walk I was over the moon. Like seeing an old special friend.
What was the collaboration process like? Was it difficult integrating your styles and methods, particularly when you were both working on the same drawing?
Louise: The collaboration process was fantastic, I loved working with someone else. It felt like making decisions about the work and research was easier. I did find it a bit challenging when we first had to start drawing into each other’s work because I had not done that before. I was terrified of ruining Laura’s work. Once I started drawing I found that I really enjoyed the process of swapping drawings back and forth.
Laura: Collaboration is not as easy as it sounds! However it is also very rewarding, exciting and satisfying. What helped is good communication, and Louise and I were already good friends. We have a lot of similarities in our practice and way of thinking. All these elements made the collab fun, fruitful and productive.
The Plant Notes project also includes a letter-writing project and an audio piece. In the letter writing project, you invite people to write letters to threatened plants. Where did this idea come from?
Louise: It was an idea that Laura came up with – a way to connect people to these rare plants. An easy thing for people to contribute. It was a way of getting some of the scientists and botanic gardens staff we were working with to contribute their view to the project.
Laura: We feel deeply for the plants. And we wanted to let them know. I have used writing letters to fruit and vegetables in another project called Dear Golden Delicious. It’s a great format to invite people to share.
The audio artwork features music, vocals and people reading the letters to threatened plants out loud. Have either of you worked with audio before, and what was the process like?
Louise: We have both recently started working collaboratively with musicians. We all worked together for the first time in 2020 making a work based on the Grey Mangrove. We also made an audio-led workshop for the Nature Festival in 2020.
I love the process of working with audio/music and feel it really expands the work I want to do. It also adds a level of emotion to the work. We were wanting audience members to feel the emotion and urgency of caring for these plants.
The audio idea came out of Covid. We are both artists that like to run workshops alongside our work and we were thinking about other ways for people to engage even if we can’t come together as a group. We also wanted to make something that didn’t involve looking at a screen. Something that you can listen to while looking out into the world.
Laura: We had the amazing support of musicians/sound artists Belinda and Naomi. The 4 of us had worked together the previous year on an Adhocracy project about mangroves.
The format involved a week of all being in the same place, exploring ideas and creating the work. Then a lot of post recording and work, and inviting other people in to read the letters as well.
What do you hope visitors to Waterhouse will take away from your work?
Louise: I hope that we have created work that plants seeds of curiosity into the audience, encouraging them to go out and research a bit about local native plants in their area, and to learn about the rare and threatened plants that might need our help.
Laura: I hope they feel for threatened plants, in a way they might long for or miss a friend. And I also hope they might think about native plants near their own place.
To find out more about Louise Flaherty's work, visit:
To find out more about Laura Wills' work, visit:
- Laura's website
- Her collaboration with Will Cheesman, Wills Projects
- @LauraFrancesWills on Instagram
Louise Flaherty and Laura Wills at the opening of Plant Notes in Adelaide.
