MISSION TO THE FUTURE

A new installation is launching viewers into the future to discover a biobank of North Queensland butterflies on the banks of the Ross River

Anew installation at Murky Waters Studio is taking audiences a thousands of years into the future. Biobank is a futuristic, imaginative, collaborative installation by local artist Jo Stacey in collaboration with Prudence and Stephen Terry.

Stacey’s installation consists of a 2.4m cube which is a “climatically controlled bio bank”.

The premise of the installation is that the bank has been built to contain and preserve local butterfly species for future generations.

The handpainted butterflies are stored in a mirrored infinity room and visitors to Biobank are invited to embrace the spirit of discovery and don lab coats to enter the space to view the last of their species.

Stacey said Biobank was the story of butterflies from the Townsville region and their uncertain future.

For Stacey the butterfly is a beautiful species to showcase and an important bio indicator for monitoring the health of our environment.

“In this artwork the diversity and beauty of butterfly raise our awareness that conservation of the environment needs to be an intrinsic consideration for our modern lifestyle,” she said.

This artwork is a speculative fiction, with a family creating a huge biobank to save the threatened Townsville butterflies.

“We travel 1000 years into a futuristic postapocalyptic world with the survivors of the climate calamities searching for the legendary Biobank,” Stacey explained as the premise for the installation.

“The environmental messages of Biobank are highlighted in essays by Amelia Rankin, an avid Cairns Birdwing butterfly enthusiast and promoter of sensitive urban gardening and

Jodi Rummer a bushwalking marine scientist. “

The 13 species of butterflies represented in Biobank are Cairns Birdwing, Green Spotted Triangle, Ulysses, Red Banded Jezebel, Royal Jewel, Silky Jewel, Monarch, Bordered Rustic, Eichhorn Crow, Orange Plan, Blue Tiger, Yellow Grass and Dingy Brown.

Biobank continues the artwork and themes Jo Stacey established with Kaleidoscope at Strand Ephemera in 2021.

For Kaleidoscope, Stacey facilitated art workshops with five secondary schools as part of the Townsville City Council Galleries ArtistIn-schools program.

Biobank is open to the public at Murky Waters Studio each Sunday from 9am to 12 for the month of July or by appointment. Murky Waters Studio is at 126 Hanran St, Townsville City, down the laneway between Jaxx Tyres and Simon George.