Miranda Bellamy & Amanda Fauteux
A Wardian Case
12 May – 5 June 2021
A Wardian Case introduces the flora of Kawau Island, home to Sir George Grey from 1862 to 1888. Grey’s shadow remains through the exotic plants and animals he introduced in pursuit of imperial prestige and prosperity. In quiet collaboration with the plants that endure, plant cell signals are sonified in chorus and cacophony. In hearing them, Kawau Island’s botanical transformation is traced and Grey’s legacy is unsettled.
A Wardian Case is accompanied by a text by Bruce E. Phillips which will be available online and in the gallery.
This work is made possible through the generous support of Creative New Zealand and The New Brunswick Arts Board.
Miranda Bellamy and Amanda Fauteux are partners and artistic collaborators who extend the stories of wild plants through site-specific research and experimentation. Working through ideas of reciprocity, animacy, and the personhood of non-humans is central to their practice. By listening to plants and responding through interdisciplinary projects, they queer the constructs that separate human beings from non-human beings and make space for the critical revision of human histories.
Bellamy holds a BFA from the Dunedin School of Art and Fauteux holds an MFA from Concordia University in Montréal. Since their collaborative practice began in 2019 they have attended artist residencies in New York and Vermont, USA, and have exhibited their work in Aotearoa, Canada, and the USA. In June 2020 they were digital artists-in-residence with Artspace Aotearoa. They live in Ōtepoti.