Play-Ground
September 2-24, 2025, at the Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts
PICA Artist in Residence
Eucalyptus Garden
Audience-interactive installation of Eucalyptus materials from my family farm
Sounds Series
Live ambient compositions created daily alongside the garden
Camera-Trap Series
Projected images from trail-cameras, collected from a national reserve
Leaf Etching Sounds Series
Eucalyptus leaf-art
About
Play-Ground was an interactive exhibition that invited visitors to engage with an evolving space of sound, visual art, and organic materials. Over the course of a four-week residency, it was open to the public as an immersive environment where daily progress unfolded through live musical performances and slow, meditative installation building. Visitors were encouraged to participate in the creation of a Eucalyptus garden, transforming the studio into a dynamic site of collective play and creation. The project’s foundation was a single branch from my family farm in Toodyay, filling the space with a leafy wonderland of sculptures, artworks, and a deep, resinous aroma.
Central to the exhibition was the practice of sonic play, beginning each day composing on the studio floor using a combination of traditional instruments, found objects, and field recordings from across Australia. These compositions, generated through free, unimpeded experimentation, were revisited throughout the day, evolving alongside the broader installation. Visual components included a projected archive of motion-detection camera-trap photographs of WA bushlands, serving as a poetic precedent for the Eucalyptus installation and drawing parallels between the shifting dynamics of the exhibition and natural landscapes.
The “garden” is reminiscent of childhood games we would play along the Avon River, where improvisational creativity thrived amidst found materials in the bush. This project attempts to embrace that same ludic attitude, utilising the space’s natural features and incorporating the often unplanned contributions from visitors. Miniature forests, towns, characters, dwellings, pathways, talismans, and needle-etched leaves, serve as active artefacts within the installation, evolving slowly as the organic materials aged over time. The exhibition’s collaborative nature invited both intentional and accidental interventions, resulting in a continually transforming work that embraces ephemerality, spontaneity, and shared authorship.
