REConstructed Landscape

Erica Seccombe, ReConstructed landscape, 2015, Single projection, no audio. 1280 × 720 with option for 4K HD 3840x2160. Codec H.264. Duration 30 min for extended loop play. Intended for projection onto gallery wall or screen. dimensions variable.

Exhibited 

• 2017, Backyards, May Space, Black Box - (forthcoming)
• 2012, Crossing the Rubicon, with Ellis Hutch, ANCA Gallery, Dickson, (earlier version entitled Constructed Landscape)

ReConstructed Landscape is inspired by exploring the National Arboretum in Canberra, a place where I frequently walk. In 2012 the arboretum was in its infancy, a landscape populated by patterned rows of spindly saplings in red plastic tubes. It occurred to me that in my life-time I may not live long enough to see some of these trees grow to their full maturity. The Giant Sequoia and the Californian Red Wood are estimated to grow to 40 metres in 50 years, and can grow to a full height of 80 metres. Seeds take a relatively short time to sprout, but to capture a time-lapse of a tree growing to full height would take as long as a century.

In this work I am exploring an arboretum in its infancy to express the idea of time and a future landscape that is beyond our imagination. In our life-time we will see these trees slowly grow but it will be the next generation that will see this arboretum fully mature. However, because of climate change and other challenges to the natural environment we cannot predict what our natural landscapes will look like in the future. ReConstructed Landscape records my experience of this present time as a reflection on what it will be like to live in the near future where the nature environment will be predominantly reconstructed as the pristine wildernesses on Earth are further reduced.