After Nature
A major survey of the last thirty years’ work by Australian artist Janet Laurence
After Nature — 1 March – 10 June 2019 Museum of Contemporary Art Australia 140 George Street The Rocks NSW mca.com.au
The starting point for Janet Laurence’s photographic series Fabled from After Eden (2012) was her carefully positioned “camera trap” in the Sumatran rainforest which, when triggered by movements nearby, captured photographs of animals in their natural habitat. In an analogous manner, her art, whether displayed in art galleries, natural history museums, landscapes or public urban spaces, arrests people’s attention. Stealthily, she stimulates latent interest in the natural world and raises awareness of its contemporary threats: accelerating global climate change, increasingly endangered environments and rising rates of loss of plant and animal species. Years before the Anthropocene epoch was generally mooted, Laurence was on the ecological case, creating nuanced and intriguing works of great integrity, focused on our planet’s interconnectedness. Travelling incessantly, she undertakes artistic residencies in populous cities and remote wildernesses, and frequently collaborates with research scientists and museum curators. Laurence’s burgeoning international reputation as a major artist is underpinned by her significant oeuvre in multiple media, which covers sculpture, installation, photography and video. Muses: Janet Laurence, Artist in the Museum (exhibited at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 2000) provided my introduction to her work. For that exhibition, she raided Melbourne Museum’s taxidermy collections. Large mammalian species, shrouded in protective sheeting, were juxtaposed with vitrines filled with the “skins” of tiny birds, whose eye sockets stuffed with cotton wool could be interpreted as a metaphor for human blindness to the complexity of the natural world. These tableaux heralded her continuing interest in museology, charting how approaches to displaying natural history have evolved. Since then she has created installations in natural history museums in countries around the world, notably during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. In 2017, her presentation on her work at an academic symposium at the Berlin Natural History Museum was rapturously received. Sitting at the intersection of artistic
“A major artist, Laurence’s burgeoning international reputation is underpinned by her significant oeuvre in multiple media, working across sculpture, installation, photography and video.”
enquiry and scientific research, her work is well known and often cited by younger artists as inspirational.
In 2019, it was her home town Sydney’s turn to be impressed. A survey exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Rachel Kent, who co-curated Laurence’s Melbourne exhibition in 2000, teased out thematic strands from thirty years of sustained artistic practice and selected keyworks as thematic examples. Beginning with Laurence’s alchemical Periodic Table series from the early to mid 1990s, it culminated in Theatre of Trees (2018–2019). Conceived for the exhibition, it comprised four diaphanous circular structures. The largest, centrally positioned and composed of three fivemetre-high concentric circles, evoked a mature forest. Three smaller, peripheral structures resembled Renaissance cabinets of curiosities. This ethereal, immersive installation was typical of Laurence’s detailed research and sensitive approach to using eclectic materials, including mesh, silk, Duraclear, audio, video projections, books, scientific glass, plant specimens, botanical models and substances, among other materials. Exploring the central structure, Forest (Theatre of Trees), felt like strolling under the dappled light of a tree canopy while entranced by ambient birdsong. “I look at trees with enormous wonder and joy, but at the same time, the realisation that they are gravely threatened,” wrote Laurence in didactic text accompanying the piece. Knowledge (Tree of Life) evoked a botanical library; Wonder (Herbarium) displayed Wollemi pine fossils and seedlings; and Desire (Elixir Lab) offered tastings of plant elixirs, Laurence’s familiar metaphor for medicinal plants healing the ailing planet. As demonstrated recently by Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish climate change activist, the youngest generation is stepping up to the mark. “I love all the children in there really engaging with the work,” commented Laurence. “They all crowd into the forest and listen.” A similarly titled but different selection of her work is currently on show in Bonn, Germany until 20 October 2019. A