Grass Roots and the Biennale Architettura 2018
June 4, 2018
This image is the result of a collaboration between myself and ecologist David Freudenberger. David was inspired by the photographs of American prairie grass roots, with 8-14 feet of roots(!!). For example,
David had seen similar photographs unfurled across the front of a lecture theatre during an ecology conference, and wanted to initiate similar imagery of Australian native grass roots, which like the prairie grasses, play a key role in the interface between soil, leaf litter and plant.
For our project, David and I dug up the native grass “Themeda australis” (Kangaroo Grass) from my property at Wamboin NSW, and placed these alongside wildflowers, smaller grasses and leaf litter. We wanted to provide both scale and show some of the grassy woodland diversity. In washing the dirt from the Kangaroo Grass roots we lost most of the small fibrous roots, which in hindsight was unsurprising given the b-horizon at my place is a very heavy clay! We may have another attempt, but grow the grass in sand.
This photograph, accompanied by David Freudenberger’s essay, “A Damaged Land Deserving Repair”, was undertaken for the Australian exhibit at the Biennale Architettura 2018. If you want to read more, here’s the reference to the publication:
Baracco, M. and Wright, L. (Eds.) (2018). “Repair: Architecture Actively Engaging with the Repair of the Places it is Part of”. Australian Pavilion, Biennale Architettura 2018.
Australian Institute of Architects, Melbourne and Actar Publishes, New York.