Created by: Donna Davis From: Ipswich, QLD, Australia

Humans are intrinsically linked with the planet and therefore share the same fate; the health of both depends on us to nurture a new ecological paradigm.

DE-CAY-dence asks how and why we assign value to other organisms and how this informs our ecological action.

Playing with the idea of ‘Who IS the fairest’ the work challenges our unconscious bias with respect to terms such as pest, germ, decay, versus notions of beauty, value and status, to explore how these beliefs inform our ecological understanding and action.

Donna worked with Entomologists, Mycologists, Ecologists, Microbial Ecologists and Mathematicians to create this video animation, which uses a combination of sculpture [microbes + fungi], photography [flora + timber], stop-frame animation [animation sequences], stereomicroscopy [source images of termites courtesy R. Clement, GWU] and digital design [frames, termites, microbes + fungi].

This artwork was created in response to an art-science residency embedded within a current environmental research project: The Wood, Termite & Fungi Project; an international project led by University of Miami, studying tropical deadwood carbon fluxes, in order to improve current carbon models used for climate forecast modeling.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Special thanks to Rebecca Clement, George Washington University and Stuart Worboys, Australian Tropical Herbarium for supplying some of the source images for the artist to digitally alter and reimagine for the artwork.

About the Creator

Donna Davis is a multi-discipline artist who explores human and non-human relationships with respect to ecological health. Inspired by art/science research collaborations her work often deals with hidden, overlooked or threatened ecological players; exploring imagined futures and constructing new ways of ‘seeing’ complex natural systems and our role within them.

For more information: donnadavisartist.weebly.com/wood-termite-fungi-project.html