JANET LAURENCE ‘Capturing Climate Change’ at the Australian Museum

June 18, 2020

Janet Laurence has curated a selection of her work in an online exhibition for the Australian Museum’s project ‘Capturing Climate Change’. The project asks, “What are you seeing in our climate-changed corner of the world?”

Laurence’s selected works evoke not only an awareness of our interconnection with the changing landscapes of nature, but also how these are “collapsing and deranging through climate change as well as direct actions by people in their quest for economy over environment.” Through these images, Laurence reflects on science, wonder and environmental loss, ultimately trying to incite an urgency to reconnect with the elemental aspects of nature.

Accompanying one of her images from her solo show ‘Entangled Garden for Plant Memory’ at the Yu-hsiu Museum of Art in Taiwan, she says, “Through my work, I try to create a space somewhere between evidence and imagination. While my practice is based on deeply held convictions about the environment and our relationship to it – and I want the work to have a politically environmental voice – I think it’s important that viewers make their own journey through the wonders of nature. I want to create a space for reflection and interpretation.”

VIEW THE ONLINE EXHIBITION HERE

Other featured images include, ‘The fear in trees’:

“I came across this burning tree near Dunedoo, NSW, and I watched it through the night. With Gary Warner, I edited the footage into a film called ‘The fear in trees’ for the tree of knowledge in ‘After Nature’, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (MCA).

Trees for me are the great signals of change. They became a register of what’s happening through climate change, pollution, poisoned waters. Yet, we are still land clearing in a dry country like Australia, despite crippling drought and the knowledge that we should do the opposite: that we need to regenerate this planet.”

And, ‘Ghosts in the Theatre of Trees’:

“All of these images were taken prior to the recent bushfire crisis, but seem now to have a haunting prescience. Now more than ever, we need to listen to our environment and learn our Indigenous peoples knowledge of caring for the land. Through this, there is hope for regeneration after such overwhelming loss.”






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