#sca projects

Animation

Procreate brushes: Inka brush and Dry brush

FPS (frames per second): 8 FPS (originally 11 FPS)

Main traced frame (with original plant monoprint for comparison)

Colour swatch guide

Artist Statement

Herbasensorium (2025) is an interactive multimedia body-of-work, focusing on the interconnected histories of botanical and multisensory art.

In developing Herbasensorium, I aimed to translate native Australian flora - and, by extension, the natural world - into a multisensory context.

I engaged in the knowledge and material translations within botanical art, specifically with the artistic subjectivity and scientific objectivity in botany. I also explored the sensory interplay (visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory) from living plants into various mediums.

In my animations, I created nature monoprints from native plants. I then traced the imprints of each monoprint to create a "main impact frame", animating its speculative movements of growth.

The tactile sculpture and the soundtrack continue this hybridisation. The pewter sculptures - embedded into a eucalyptus branch - are cast from various seedpods and buds, the process of pewter casting allowing textural imprints alongside the creation of new forms. Merging live recordings of wind, water, and animals (mainly insects and birds) in a local forest reserve with two musical tracks created on Ableton, I created a speculative track - both for how plants might hear and for the sounds their electrical signals produce.

The elements within my work are therefore considered under the term "poiesis", a Greek word referring to the act of creating. On a fundamental level, "poiesis" describes an openness to creativity that facilitates these interdisciplinary interactions.

Video excerpt of installation

Installation and close-up photos (under the cut for post length)

Artist Statement

My speculative maquette is for Mollusca, which is an outdoor gallery space for art exhibitions in harbourside/coastal cities.

Throughout the design process, I envisioned Mollusca as a tribute to the histories of marine science and their relationship to art.

To create a site-specific gallery space, I considered both form and materials, focusing on how they would contribute to its purpose – exhibiting marine-themed artworks – and its interactions with the surrounding environment.

The design itself features two components:

A twisted platform that visitors will walk across to see the works on display.

Small hubs organised in a row along each edge of the platform. Most of these hubs will have artworks displayed on the exterior wall (e.g. photographs, illustrations, paintings, prints or films without audio) while others will have information plaques accompanying each work (these plaques can be replaced depending on the specific exhibition and its works).

The biomorphic curvatures in the design are modelled after Phylliroe pelagic nudibranchs (platform) and Cyerce sea slugs (hubs), evident in both the CGI and clay models of my maquette. The platform, with its twisted shape, mirrors the dynamic motions of pelagic nudibranchs swimming in the ocean as well as waves in the coastal sea. I also drew inspiration from the illustrations of biologist Ernst Haeckel and the works of fashion designer Iris Van Herpen.

Initially, I imagined Mollusca’s platform to be constructed from an opaque material, with organic patterns – resembling the organs of pelagic nudibranchs – sculpted or painted onto both sides.

However, I later decided to carry the design influence of marine molluscs onto Mollusca’s hypothetical materiality.

The colour visualisations of the maquette – which I created by digitally painting over screenshots of the CGI model (taken at different angles) – depict the potential materials:

Translucent materials (iridescent glass for the platform and frosted acrylic for the hubs) interacting with the surrounding light, inspired by that of pelagic nudibranchs, some Cyerce species, and other marine molluscs (e.g. deep-sea cephalopods).

Colour-changing LED lights are embedded into both structures, which activate at nighttime to guide visitors walking on the platform and to mirror the luminescent patterns (bioluminescence, iridescence, etc.) of various marine molluscs.

I planned for Mollusca to be displayed in an oceanside area of a harbourside/coastal city (e.g. in Sydney’s Barangaroo or Singapore’s Marina Bay). The reason for this is that cities have a relationship to the ocean, which facilitates trade, tourism and agriculture/aquaculture in multiple ways. However, this relationship also encompasses the ocean’s influence on the creative arts, both past and present.

Digital concepts (Procreate - traced from Spline 3D models)

Animation

Procreate brushes: Inka brush and Dry brush

FPS (frames per second): 8 FPS

Main traced frame (with original plant monoprint for comparison)

Colour swatching guide

Animation

Procreate brushes: Blotchy brush, Chalk brush and Shale brush

FPS (frames per second): 6 FPS

Main traced frame (with original plant monoprint for comparison)

Colour swatching guide

Test 1 (26.9.25)

Test 2 (5.11.25)

Test 3 - with ambient soundtrack and a new incomplete animation (19.11.25)

(In the event a bug occurs and you see an error screen above, here is the video link to copy: https://vimeo.com/1068012871)

Artist Statement

“It opens, and it closes and you reach for it.

The blue surrounding it grows cloudy, and it floats away from you.” - Excerpt from Marianne Moore’s ‘A Jelly-Fish’ (1909)

During my sleep, specifically in the stages between deep sleep and dreaming, I often feel a “drifting” sensation as if I’m floating in the ocean. 

Inspired by the creative perspectives of poet Marianne Moore and video artist Aron Sanchez-Baranda, my aim was to transform the jellyfish into a symbol of dreams and sleep, mirroring the aforementioned “drifting” sensation between the two states. 

I also see the jellyfish as having a meditative presence, emblematic of the nature of dreams: multifaceted, emotive, fleeting. 

Species featured in the footage (recorded June 2024) I used for this small project:

Greater moon jellyfish (specifically Aurelia labiata)

Purple-striped jellyfish (Chrysaora colorata)

Pacific sea nettle (Chrysaora fuscescens)

Description of session

"Plants have always moved over and between land masses, transported both intentionally and inadvertently from their native lands to new ones. This spread of plants has accelerated over the past few hundred years through colonial expansion, massively altering ecosystems.

We will begin by wandering the university gardens to gather weeds. These specimens will serve as a starting point to return to the printmedia room to print, research and discuss how the movement of plants has left lasting impacts, many of which have propelled us towards climate crisis."

Short summary of Keg de Souza's practice (with link to portfolio)

Goan heritage (from the Goa state in India)

Politics of space (architecture, colonialism, displacement, culture, etc.) - e.g. Abundance: Fruit of the Sea, Bounty of the Mountain (2016) and Impossible Utopia (2011)

Botany/landscapes in relation to global/colonial histories (documented in herbariums and other botanical archives), as well as the impacts these histories have (e.g. "trauma of the landscape") - e.g. If a coconut falls (2024) and Monumental as Anything (2023)

EDIT (OCTOBER 2024) - Here's a link to more detail on her practice and her works:

Process and research (with images)

We collected a number of plants (mostly weeds) in a hidden garden on campus.

After choosing the ones we liked to use for our print, we rolled ink onto the plants and printed them onto paper to create a monoprint (NOTE: I WILL DEFINITELY CONSIDER THIS PROCESS FOR A FUTURE WORK).

Some of the plants I found that I could identify: Euphorbia peplus (Petty Spurge), Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo), Cyclospermum Leptophyllum (Marsh Parlsey), Youngia japonica (Oriental False Hawksbeard), Epilobium ciliatum (Fringed Willow-herb)

Interestingly, after some research, I learnt that all of these plants either have been used or are being researched for their medicinal properties.

Petty Spurge: Has been historically used to treat warts and other skin conditions, and has recently been researched for its cytotoxic (toxic to cells) properties in treating non-melanoma skin cancers.

Marsh Parsley: Has been researched for antibacterial and antimicrobial properties.

Heavenly Bamboo: Antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties for treating colds, asthma and other respiratory conditions in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine.

Oriental False Hawksbeard: Used for treating fever, snakebites, coughs and colds, shingles, sore throat and diarrhoea in traditional Chinese medicine (and for treating wounds, and preventing the formation of kidney stones in traditional Bangladeshi medicine) - recent research has also found antiviral properties in treating respiratory conditions like RSV.

Fringed Willow-herb (not used in monoprints out of fear that the flowers would get damaged in their already delicate state - perhaps I could try a technique not too dissimilar to the Japanese printing technique gyotaku): Used to treat infected skin sores, hip and back pain, and diarrhoea and other gastrointestinal problems by some Indigenous American groups.

Final prints

Row 1-2: Ghosts of a Herbarium: Euphorbia peplus (Petty Spurge) and Cyclospermum Leptophyllum (Marsh Parsley)

Row 3-5: Ghosts of a Herbarium: Sprig of Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo) embraced by Cyclospermum Leptophyllum (Marsh Parlsey) and Youngia japonica (Oriental False Hawksbeard)

Row 6: Both monoprints alongside each other