Wona Bae & Charlie Lawler | Late

Throughout most of human existence, we have lived in a complex web of relationships with all other species in addition to the air, water, and soil – an eco-centric view. We have recognised our reliance on the world around us. However, in the past couple of hundred years, this perspective has shifted. We have created a world that revolves around us, for us – an anthropocentric view.

Artists Wona Bae (South Korea) and Charlie Lawler (Australia) have added another chapter to their long career of poetic and conceptual installations that articulate the many connections between nature and the human condition.

In botany, there's a survival strategy plants use called serotiny, which simply means ‘Later’. In the Australian bush, this is exhibited by plants that retain their seeds until release is triggered by the heat of fire.

Testament to the resilience of nature, and in homage to the humble seed, one of the great innovators of the environmental world. For ‘Late’, the artists reimagine a serotinous seed-like form. Mapped within its charred spiked structure are climate data points relating to the Gosper’s Mountain mega-fire that raged for 79 days on Sydney’s northern fringe from late October 2019 to January 2020. 

The humbling magnitude of Australia’s black summer bushfires serves as a reminder of how these natural systems, which have slowly adapted over millennia, stand in stark contrast to the ongoing human-induced climate emergency and the effects of decades of stalled action on climate change.

Responding to Passage's unique gallery setting, the scale and positioning of the work creates a deliberate tension with the flow of the room. Like the elephant in the room, partially obstructing the entrance, 'Late' challenges the viewer to navigate their way around the work, both metaphorically and physically.