In January 2024 I took the Cicada rug on a road trip up the NSW coast to visit the ground it was mapped from. The road trip enabled me to overlay our own ephemeral human stories with 400 million years of earth stories. It also enabled me to reveal the deeper themes of belonging that my practice explores and in so doing increase awareness of earth science and the importance of responding with care to the ground we walk on.
I knew the rugs would lend themselves to the glamorous interior ‘domesticised’ photographs, but I also wanted some photographs of them ‘in the wild’. The domestic photo demonstrates the unique, collectable qualities of the rug and how they elevate an internal space, but the ‘wild’ photos enable me to tell the broader earth science message. It allowed me to capture the imagination; to put wings on the ideas and values of the practice. The travelling rug animates geology and recasts it as a dynamic living system.
The road trip enabled me to connect the rug geographically to the place it was mapped from, and to reveal how the rock, vegetation, and colour hues change in different geological eras. It was also important to get the colours out into the sun and natural light and see how the landscape, sky, ocean, and time of day, reflect in the rug and dramatically change the hues, saturation, and texture of the of the yarn. As more road trips are undertaken it will be clear how diverse the geology of this continent is and how the colours in each rug reflect the diversity of the landscapes.
The road trip was also an opportunity to reveal the spirit and humour of the design process. The images were set up to be both beautiful and amusing. I wanted to background the rugs, not with the most picturesque settings, but on the ground where the human culture happens. In the everyday, on the road, on the beach, on a boat ramp, by an ocean pool. I photographed the rug, not as a design object, but as you might a friend on holiday. This deliberate nonchalance puts 400 million years of geology front and centre, to remind us that despite our efforts to veneer the planet with roads and buildings, there are complex geological stories that underpin our everyday lives.
The Cicada rug is close to my heart as most of my family and extended family were born on, and lived with this part of our continent. Although I was born in Melbourne, and grew up overseas as an expat kid, I also feel like I am from NSW, as I spent a lot of my childhood on the beaches and cattle farms, visiting family at Christmas when we came back to Australia. As I drove up the coast on the road trip, I was able to connect with people I love, and photograph them on the rug, which was very meaningful as it bought a more intimate appreciation of my family and the geology it has lived on.
