The works included in The (re)Arrangements reflect my focus of the past few years - the human impact on the environment and the relationship between the domestic and scientific interpretation of the natural world, from both historic and contemporary perspectives.

Climate change, loss of biodiversity and the fragility of the natural world are grave and weighty issues. An extraordinary residency at Carrick Hill, a unique manor house nestled in the Tarndanya/Adelaide foothills during 2023, enabled me to unravel these issues within the topography of a domestic and intimate setting. By using the language of the garden, the house and the collection to convey ideas and propositions about global uncertainties I hoped to encourage dialogue on this topic and reinforce the capacity of art to disrupt assumptions and expectations.

Carrick Hill, built in the 1930s on the ancestral lands of the Kaurna people, is a grand house filled with an eclectic and historically significant art collection, surrounded by extensive heritage gardens and ringed by native bushland. The original contents of the house are almost completely intact and the grounds undiminished. The estate is a time capsule of privileged mid-twentieth century life in Tarndanya/Adelaide, with domestic spaces that exude the power of living with art.

My interest lay in unpicking the relationship of the garden to the house; investigating the roles and rituals of cultivation, harvest, arrangement and display that plants played in the life of the residents. Looking at the relationship we now have with the natural world under changed circumstances and global pressures. To reflect on causes and shifting attitudes towards environmental consciousness.

It is a challenge to be hopeful. Caring deeply for the earth, for the continuance of life, for how we negotiate and balance survival and sufficiency with all life on the planet, underlies everything I strive to do as an artist.

The outcome of this project was an exhibition titled The Arrangements: assembling nature held during the 2023 Adelaide Festival and the works were integrated within the domestic interiors of the Carrick Hill house.

I am thrilled to present this collection at Funaki. The re-siting of the works within an elegant contemporary domestic interior offers a rich re-contextualisation of the original themes. Shifting the emphasis to the contemporary impact of colonisation upon the land we call home.

Alongside this collection I am presenting three other works, including two made especially for this exhibition (Black Tear Tree and White Tear Tree). And in the project space is Restless Calm, a large network of glowing plant roots. This is work from the exhibition Shared Reckonings, held in the Botanic Gardens of South Australia during the 2022 Adelaide Festival.

Catherine Truman, July 2024

The (re)Arrangements catalogue