Plant Treaty was a temporary garden installation in the grounds of Lismore Regional Gallery. It included a program of talks and workshops inviting public engagement on the role of eco-reparation in creating positive cultural and environmental change.
Speakers included Arakwal Bundjalung woman and plant knowledge holder Aunty Delta Kay discussing local Indigenous foldaways, through her family’s experience of seeking cultural recognition on their traditional lands around Byron Bay.
Bundjalung man and cultural performer Clarence Slockee discussed Indigenous horticulture and biodiversity through his use of native food and medicine plants in the regeneration of urban spaces, as director of the Indigenous led landscape and cultural design business Jiwah.
I spoke about foraging for Eurasian edible and medicinal plants classified weeds in Australia. Drawing on experiences between Australia and Germany, working and collaborating with community gardens, a professional forager, fermentation specialist, an historian and a botanist.
The outdoor Plant Treaty installation replaces an exhibition originally planned for Lismore Regional Gallery, but was reinterpreted as an outside project due to catastrophic flooding that destroyed the gallery prior to the exhibition in March. The exhibition was to include a range of fermented foods created under ECO GUT a business developed for the project to discuss sustainable foldaways with key native species pointing to ecosystems under threat.