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Tasman Threads

Since 2022, Dr Tracey M Benson of Treecreate and Dr Maggie Buxton and Kim Newall (AwhiWorld) have worked together on a series of Trans-Tasman projects, including residencies and creative collaborations that connect Onerahi in Whangarei, NZ, to Yarun (Bribie) Island in Queensland, Australia.

This partnership is based on a shared understanding of transdisciplinary practice which necessarily includes a spiritual component. There are also mutual passions for walking, nature, systemic thinking, and supporting a multi-dimensional worldview.

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PlantLab Residency

Tracey first worked with AwhiWorld via a residency in 2022 at PlantLab.

PlantLab was a unique project that brought together artist-scientists, cultural creatives, and creative technologists to celebrate the wonders of plants. Through cutting-edge science and technology, they created incredible works of art and installations that showcased the importance of place-based research and emphasised the creative process as just as necessary as the final output.

In addition, PlantLab provided a platform for showcasing work in progress, skill development, and employment opportunities for cross-disciplinary creatives in Te Tai Tokerau. The project was a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in shaping our future on this planet.

During that time, Tracey conducted workshops and worked alongside practitioners. She delivered a talk that can be viewed here. We experimented with moving between physical and digital collaboration and worked on a projection project together. That project can be viewed here.

BIOS Residency

Our next collaboration was during BIOS, our next creative innovation lab held in May 2023 at Whangarei Art Museum.

BIOS brought together a diverse group of artists, scientists, and technologists to work on projects that addressed social and environmental challenges. Through cutting-edge technology, collaborative workspaces, and mentorship programs, BIOS fostered creative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. 

Tracey attended another residency working alongside creatives in our Awhi Incubator programme to deliver a workshop and mentor practitioners. We worked with her on an AR-based project and another projection work based around cyanotypes.

Image by Taylor Lee
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Alternative Reality Gardening

Dr Maggie Buxton curated and produced a publication and symposium project that aimed to open portals to different realities using the gardening theme.

The project invited scientists, technologists, theorists, poets, crafters, dancers, artists, and engineers from AwhiWorld’s cross-disciplinary network of collaborators and partner organisations to contribute.

This included another opportunity to collaborate with Tracey, who provided a poem and a beautiful series of cyanotype images using her father’s funeral flowers. A moving contribution that was supplemented by a symposium talk. (Images left: scans of cyanotype images left by Dr Tracey Benson)

Weaving Waters Residency Yarun

Kim Newall and Tracey Willms Deane, a former Plant Lab researcher and participant in our Awhi Incubator project, attended Weaving Waters, a two-week residency at Yarun (Bribie) Island.

Maggie appeared virtually, sharing her work and collaboration with Tracey at AwhiWorld. Kim and Tracey spent time researching, sharing and learning with the international participants. 

Yet another opportunity to connect Te Tai Tokerau to Yarun and open portals between practices and energies in the locations.

 

Workshop
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Liminal Zones

Liminal Zones is potentially the next stage of our collaboration and will include sharing practices, ideas, and knowledge from these liminal locations within a short distance from our homes.

These practice sites are based around marine reserves (at Yarun and in Onerahi), which are mangrove-based ecosystems. These areas are at the nexus point of climate change and are culturally contested.

This project is in discussion stage currently

 

About Dr Tracey Benson

Tracey is an Australian-based interdisciplinary artist, UX designer, researcher and founder of Treecreate. She is passionate about more-than-human design and bridging the links between Western thinking and experiential and interconnected knowledge.

 

Tracey works at the nexus of media arts, digital transformation, ecological systems and citizen empowerment. Her work focuses on belonging, place, well-being and pro-environmental behaviour change. Walking is central to her creative practice of exploring locative and augmented media tools to engage audiences to see their places with fresh eyes.

 

Her work has been extensively presented internationally in media arts festivals and exhibitions. With a passion for understanding different knowledge systems and engaging audiences, she often collaborates with Indigenous communities and Elders, historians, technologists and scientists.

 

She lectures internationally and holds adjunct positions at the University of Canberra, the More than Human Lab at Victoria University, Wellington, NZ, the eXtended Reality Collective at Charles Sturt University and is an Advisor for the TransArt Institute.

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Alternative Reality Gardening 23

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