Description
Blue Haze: Awaba (2024), Museum of Art and Culture Yapang
Hand bound letterpress artist’s books, nature prints, Eucalyptus branches, eucalyptus-dyed silks, hand-carved eucalyptus stools, sound installation made in collaboration with Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, botanical illustrations reproduced from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh collection. Reading room: custom made shelving, custom made glass tables with eucalyptus leaves and branches, botanical books, puzzle, marker on paper drawing, printed mind map on glass.
Hand bound letterpress artist’s books and nature prints Collection of MAC Yapang.
Blue Haze: Awaba brings the story of the eucalyptus’ journey back to its native lands and was the expanded iteration of Blue Haze (2023), Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
‘Blue Haze follows the journey of eucalyptus, with over 750 species, away from its culturally significant context – the Aboriginal land it comes from. At the hands of the British, it was taken from Australia and promoted around the world for being the fastest and tallest growing hardwood. In India over 170 species were trialled beginning in the 1840s in the Nilgiri Hills and it quickly became the most common tree grown for timber plantations. The word Nilgiri comes from a mixture of Tamil and Sanskrit words: neelam meaning ‘blue’ and giri meaning ‘mountain’; originally named for the clustered bloom of the blue flowering species Strobilanthes kunthiana but now this area also radiates a blue haze from eucalyptus trees.
A blue haze is often seen around eucalyptus forests or plantations as the oil from the leaves combines with dust particles and water vapour which scatter short wavelength rays of light that are predominantly blue.
Eucalyptus has spread across the globe, now covering a land mass area of over 22 million hectares worldwide, leading to devastating impacts such as lowering water tables and increasing fire risk. This prompts us to ask the question: what happens when these trees are removed from the Aboriginal land they grow on and the Traditional Custodians who care for them?’
Wanting to ground the work back in Place Blue Haze: Awaba features new work – nature prints and hand bound letterpress books of Uncle Doug Archibald and Uncle Norm Archibald’s Tree Stories. See more in publications here.
