What is our relationship with nature?#BiodiverisityDay: 12 things you can do #ForNature
I’d just walked off a busy Flinders Street in central Melbourne to enter the latest art exhibition by Australian artist, Patricia Piccinini– A Miracle Constantly Repeated. With hyper-realistic sculptures and installations across an entire floor of the historic Flinders Street Station, friends had warned me, it will be a bit disturbing, yet strangely, beautiful
Over the next three hours, I discovered a world with its own unique biodiversity of species. A turtle with a vacuum-cleaner-vents molded on its shell, grazing in a forest, an immaculately dressed cat-human belting out operatic arias aside a mechanical tree, and in a bedroom, two lovers, part-human part-centaur hybrids sleeping in a double bed. Two young girls wheeling a koala in the basket of a push bike.
With each encounter, I wanted to know more. What is this world? What are these mutated-lpart-human-part-something creatures? Are they creations of nature or experiments gone wrong? What’s happened here?
What is our relationship with nature?
In her work, Piccinini invites you to immerse and reflect – about you and nature
A young man playing with a hybrid ape-tree like creature sitting atop his shoulders, like a father and son; across the room, a reclining woman, half human half tree. Feelings of happiness, trust and intimacy between humans and nature.
A few rooms across, two creatures lie in hiding. In another, sitting atop a school desk, a hybrid human couple slump, exhausted, terrified and with fear in their eyes. What are they running away from? I check my guide to read that the composition of this sculpture was modeled on a black & white photo taken of the last two living Tasmanian Tigers to inhabit earth.
In one final room, alive with the colour of schools of tropical fish projected across the walls, a young child sleeps on a lap. The scene resembles that of a daughter falling asleep peacefully on the lap of her mother. Protected, in a trusting and loving place. A home. Caring for the girl is a dolphin-like sea creature. Sitting up-right. Projecting strength, vitality, tenderness and care.
Nature, as protector, provider and carer of humans.
As I left the exhibition, the surreal and dystopian world I had entered, three hours earlier felt a lot closer to my own
Nature is critical to our existence, but human activity and progress has altered 75% of the earth’s surface and other species habitats are destroyed or under stress. Around 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades. So what role can we play with nature?
World Biodiversity Day – time for action
May 22nd is World Biodiversity day. More than a day, its an opportunity to increase our awarenes about the importance of biodiversity, current ecosystems under threat and to start taking action individually, as a family, community, with work colleagues, or in your business. Changes at all levels matter and create momentum.
Here’s 12 things you can do to do more #ForNature
Individual/ community
Reconnect with nature.
Clean up an area around you
Reduce Waste
Take action against plastic pollution
Ditch disposable, choose reusable
Conserve Energy
Business
Take steps to preserve and create spaces for wildlife. Create green areas, plant native shrubs or trees
Implement sustainable energy management systems across facilities
Support environmental causes
Increasingly source raw materials from local and eco-friendly suppliers
Manage water and carbon footprint
Reduce and eliminate waste generation
Image: “A miracle Constantly Repeated”: Patricia Piccinini