I was here

I was here, first

I made this work as a reflection on our human-centric lives in the age of the Anthropocene.

We like to declare 'I was here'. The planet is marked by it like never before.

The work placed in nature, in a temporary installation on ANU grounds, was set up as a dialogue.

The manufactured carpet represents people and their machines. What if nature, represented as a tree, could talk and say 'I was here, first'?

Anthropomorphism may or may not be taboo, however. I wanted to explore a fictional conversation knowing that trees actually converse in their own way, with signals about environmental change (they search for kin, and transfer their nutrients to neighbouring plants before they die), with a collective intelligence similar to an insect colony.

Materials: Recycled cotton rug, spray paint, twigs.