THE PLACE

Captured in the artist’s local area, amongst the natural sandstone formations where the native lichens grow, Symbiont: Reconnect _ The Place (2002), highlights the sensory exchange that occurs between the natural atmospheric elements – the sun, the air, and the natural billabong water – the native lichens, and Ferracin's physicality.

These essential natural phenomena which support the survival of lichens and humans alike are acting as bridge between Ferracin and the landscape.

Through editing and slow transitions, Ferracin meditatively explores and empathises with the place, physically responding to natural phenomena and connecting to her cardinal orientation, marked by the same log and stick used for the cardinal direction method and displayed in the gallery.

The video commences by slowly dropping the gaze towards the earth, the realm of living matter, and then ascends to encompass the broader landscape. This interplay of micro and macro dimensions contextualises the lichens within the granite environment and the ecosystem that they exist within. The textures merge with the carved lines of the sculpted granite surfaces, forms carved by time and ancient water.

Ferracin's physicality acts as a reference point, her shadow stretching over the granite face a point of connecting between her humanity and the non-human lifeforce of place. Here, Ferracin and lichens reconnect to their biological identity and location, as they are tied to the place, the habitat, and to the cosmos at large.