Vitalstatistix acknowledges that we, and our home Waterside, are on Kaurna Country, its sovereignty never ceded. We acknowledge Kaurna people as the continuing custodians of the Adelaide Plains who have a spiritual relationship with this land. We respect their cultural authority. We pay our respect to Kaurna Elders, past, present and emerging, and through them to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Plant Notes
Louise Flaherty and Laura Wills with Naomi Keyte and Belinda Gehlert (SA)
Plant Notes is an ephemeral art tour investigating the remnant flora on Kaurna Yerta/ the Adelaide Plains, and in this iteration the mangroves (Avicennia marina) which inhabit the Yerta Bulti/Port Adelaide region.
Louise Flaherty and Laura Wills are collaborating South Australian visual artists, both with drawing and installation backgrounds alongside strong interests in creating site responsive and participatory works. Their practices reflect and generate curiosity with the natural environment. They have invited two acclaimed South Australian composers and musicians, Belinda Gehlert (violinist) and Naomi Keyte (singer songwriter) to collaborate on engaging social-distancing publics through creating an audible experience of their work.
The project riffs from the history of botanical illustrations as a way to record science and knowledge, to a contemporary and explorative process conveying feelings, loss, the unsaid and the underrepresented.
Creative Team: Co-creators – Louise Flaherty and Laura Wills with Belinda Gehlert and Naomi Keyte
Image: Louise Flaherty
Published on
11 September
Live+Local
Artist talk and walk (with Das Wasser im Bade)
Friday September 25 at 7pm
Residency Outcome
We wanted to create an experience for people to have their own journey to explore the natural world that is sometimes close to them but they might have never experienced. Our Adelaide based team spent four days together in August at Waterside at Vitalstatix in Port Adelaide. Our research focus was the Grey Mangrove (Avicennia marina) which inhabits the Yerta Bulti/Port Adelaide region. We visited local mangrove habitats, some thriving, some holding on, some forging. We met with marine biologist: Dr Sabine Dittman who is an expert on coastal ecosystem ecology, and local volunteers from the Estuary Care Foundation to hear about their work with Mangroves in the Port Adelaide area. We also met with Aunty Margaret Brodie, Kaura women from Port Adelaide. She talked about her family’s close connection to the Port River and history of the Lartelare Park.
The work we have made is a participatory tour of a mangrove tale. Through drawing and sound, animation and music we get closer to the mangrove, Marina. We acknowledge Marina by learning about their strength in coastal erosion, relationships to the tide, and connections to the animals that shelter in their roots. When you view it try to think about symbiotic relationships, tides and trees that live in salt water and anaerobic soils. We are highlighting the strength and beauty of this powerful and sometimes forgotten tree. When you look at our digital outcome, imagine that it is going to be all put together for an experiential tour, with people and real mangroves.
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