Air

4 Jamie North, quoted in Grace Ebert, ‘Australian plants grow from the crevices of Jamie North’s living sculptures’, Colossal , 21 December 2020, <thisiscolossal.com/2020/12/ jamie-north-plant-sculptures/>, viewed June 2022. Jamie North / The Infiltrators (Wattle Street, Ultimo) 2009 (opposite) Portal No. 1 2014 As we interact with the plant life embedded in the twin sculptures, we participate in the reciprocal exchange of gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide) that is the singular, sustaining feature of our interdependent relationship with the natural world. As if gesturing to this miraculous, invisible circulation of air, the offshoots and tendrils of the plant forms resemble the branching bronchioles and sprouting alveoli of a pair of lungs. While the column or tower is a recurrent trope in North’s practice, any neo- classical association with notions of progress, triumph or hubris is undermined by his interest in degraded materiality and form. The artist remarks on how, through pre-emptive material erosion, he makes the object ‘conducive to plant sustainment, growth, and eventual merger with the inorganic form’, suggesting an Arcadian landscape in ruin. 4 To achieve this erosion, North employs a ‘tumbling’ technique, in which coal ash and steel slag are rolled together before being added to cement; the resulting concrete mixture is then poured into prefabricated formwork. While the texture of these materials evokes the porosity of volcanic rock, they are industrial by-products and recall North’s childhood, growing up as the son of a miner near Newcastle’s BHP steelworks, which closed in 1999. At a time when nature is under threat from catastrophic anthropogenic change, the burgeoning plant communities in Jamie North’s works harbour the promise of an uncertain regeneration, highlighting nature’s enduring resilience and our need to find better ways to cohabit with the Earth. NM 109 108 Shared Shared