The Nature of Appearances
Artists’ portfolio for ANTENNAE The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Issue 50, Northern Hemisphere Spring 2020
The Nature of Appearances, is an outcome of a long term, ongoing, collaborative art project with evolutionary scientists, Dr Steve Trewick & Dr Mary Morgan-Richards, Institute of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, which explores aspects of the environmental and cultural histories between New Zealand and Great Britain. Serving as both art and science, the project investigates a colony of Clitarchus hookeri phasmids (stick insects) naturalised in the Isles of Scilly, where questions of evolutionary adaption meet the cultural significance of migration and the lingering historic implications of early globalisation.
Related projects:
PC2 Insectary, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2014;
Tresco Abbey Gardens, 2006;
Aldersley, David James, Photograph of the ship Arawa in Wellington Harbour 27 March 1908.
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Ref: 1/1-001061-G
Logbook detail, PC2 Insectary, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2014;
New Zealand plants established in the gardens, Tresco Abbey, Isles of Scilly, 1911.
Auckland War Memorial Museum Library, New Zealand. Ref: MS-89/64
FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND Captain Dorrien-Smith’s Researches.
Western Morning News (Plymouth) – Friday 08 May 1908, page 7.
Members of the Auckland Islands party of the Sub-Antarctic Islands scientific expedition at a flying camp in the bush, at the end of a working day, Bollons, John Peter (Captain), 1862-1929 :Album of photographs of scientific expedition to the Sub-Antarctic Islands, November 1907.
The group comprises: From left: Robert Speight, Dr William Blaxland Benham, G S Collyns (in front), A M Finlayson, Dr Leonard Cockayne (in front), John Smaillie Tennant, H D Cook, H B North, unknown, Captain Arthur A Dorrien-Smith, Edgar R Waite (in front), Bernard Cracroft Aston. Photo: Samuel Page, November 1907. Ref: PA1-q-228-31-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand;
PC2 Insectary, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2015
Tresco Abbey Gardens, 2006;
PC2 Insectary, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2014
Page 2 detail, New Zealand plants established in the gardens, Tresco Abbey, Isles of Scilly, 1911.
Auckland War Memorial Museum Library, New Zealand. Ref: MS-89/64;
PC2 Insectary, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2015
Tresco Abbey Gardens, 2006;
PC2 Insectary, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2014