Leah Bullen Arid garden, Wollongong

My recent work examines the garden as a site that attempts to recreate and curate the natural world. Through gardens, I explore how we experience and consume the spectacle of nature more broadly within contemporary culture during an era of increasing environmental uncertainty.

This work was made after time spent at the Wollongong Botanic Garden while I was an artist in residence at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery. Under a blazing sun, despite the drought, the arid climate plants were flourishing. In these ecologically precarious times, botanical tenacity gives me hope.

Leah Bullen, 2021