Fra ‘n Cesca are my two little succulents! they have both living with us since the day I went to the Glebe’s market to find a present for my sister birthday- I got her a pendant and two plants for me on that day;)
My sister’s name is Francesca Fra n Cesca and she loves succulents! back home in Milan, Italy, she has at least 20 different types of these plants and it was a tradition for me to bring her a little succulent on my way back from every travel. now i am in Australia. I have been living in Sydney for 15 months and i miss her really heaps, but unfortunately I haven’t gone back yet. That’s why I have Cesca ‘n Fran in my house…I’ve shown their pics to the “real” Francesca, and she loves them (Cesca is her favourite). They are lovely little succulent, that remind me of my younger sister!
I love them! And her!!!!

On new years eve, 2001, a bunch of us went for a big bike ride
around to lots of different parties – in Darlinghurst, Surry
Hills, and Glebe. We figured ti was a good way to get around
town because public transport and taxi are a nightmare on
new years, and it’s fun to ride in a pack, getting a little
drunker. Towards the end of our night (maybe halve past three)
we were riding through Glebe. Jane was there, and Sara Sauce
and Elaine I think. We stumbled across a party which we hadn’t
known about and just popped in . Everyone loves a few extra
guests on new years. I remember meeting Lisa Pryor at this
party, she writes urban reports for the Herald now days, and I
talked to her about her unreal estate project. As we were
leaving near the wooden fence outside this Glebe house I
spotted the embrio of Mama Cactus – just a fragment in the
dust. I picked it up and shoved it in my pocket. A few days
later I discovered the fragment again, when I put it through a
load of washing. It was looking a bit shriveled but I found a
terracotta pot and shoved it in anyway, and put it on my
windowsill. It lived on the windowsill for ages without
anything happening, but one day a bud appeared (maybe a few
months later) and from then on it began to take of. The new
bud was so youthful and bright green in comparison with the
shriveled original stub. I really liked this cactus. Every
couple of months a new bud would appear on top of the latest
one. I took the cactus with me to Adelaide when I did an artist
in residence at the experimental art foundation. The cactus
traveled on the dashboard of the transit van. After a while
bits began to drop off the cactus. I shared these into new
pots and they continued to grow. One of these I gave to Elena
for her birthday in 2004. Jane and I painted “ELENA’S PETITE
CACTUS” on the side of the pot. but now Elena’s Petite Cactus
is much larger than her mum, and Elena tells me that the E.P.C
has itself given birth to many offspring.

The End.

Garth, Waterloo
Crown of Thorns

Part of Hanging Gardens and Other Tales

Published by info on July 4th, 2008 | Filed under underbelly | Comment now »

it’s all happening out there, in the big wide space!

The space is slowly filling with plants and stories.
Here’s Elena with her special cactus Petite.
She’s very fond of her green friend, which is been living with her for several years.
And Below is Petite’s story:


For my sixth birthday my dad’s friend Lucas gave me a pot full of dirt, so i thought.
I took it home and a couple of weeks later a little green head pocked out.
It kept growing until Petite is what she is now, not quite petite as she once was.
Now that she’s part of the Hanging Garden she can finally be re-united with her mother, as Lucas has given Petite’s mum to the garden to show.
Petite’s mum now gets the chance to see some of her grand-children which are living in the pot with Petite.
And so is Petite story.

Published by info on July 1st, 2008 | Filed under underbelly | 1 Comment »

on taking down websites and rigging up potplants

well well, the webmaster for weeds.org.au (the online resource for the government’s agency which deals with weeds in Australia, Weeds Australia) decided to censor you.
Here’s how it happened:

To whom it may concern

A website at the address http://www.weedyconnection.com/ contains material (images and text) sourced and copied directly from the Weeds Australia (http://www.weeds.org.au/) website. This material, specifically at http://www.weedyconnection.com/database and pages linked from that address, has been used without permission of the originating authors and copyright holders, [...]

In this first instance we request that you remove all such material from your website within seven days. If you fail to remove the material within seven days legal action may be commenced with a view to having the material removed. As well as any penalties arising from such an action, you may be held liable for any costs associated with bringing the action against you.

Regards

…
You took down the database.
You had a chat with a couple of copyrights lawyers about this.
One saying you could try to explain to this people that you are an artists, this weedyconnection.com is a cultural-aesthetic argument, you are not making any profit whatshowever from it, and that we both aim at the same goal: to provide an informative platform for people to refer to when wanting to know more about the botanical reality of Australia.
Weeds Australia focus on legislations and botanical “outlaws”, while you problematize the issues by spotlighting the environment-exploitative aims of much of the legislations, disregarding nature’s needs to overcome bio-diversity alienation created by monocultures, disregarding possible feeble ethnobotanical connections which should be foster (you argue) in order to bridge the ever-widening gap between humans and the dirt they walk upon everyday, disregarding the fact that we human have destroyed enough as it is. We should stop.

We have different arguments. But we have the same goal. Let people know what’s under their feet.

The Lawyer from Viscopy instead suggested to just shut up, say the least possible, take down the site and hope they are not a litigious lot, as you would be liable for whatever their well-paid lawyers could fancy to corner you in.

In an email to a friend the other day, attempting at explaining where you stand politically, you wrote: “i support no one, while respecting everyone’s position”, which pretty much sums you up.

You took down the site and slowly you will reload it with creative commons informations, the lot.
You argument will still stand as direct criticism of the Weeds Australia website/attitude but instead of media-jamming them you will just keep it clean.
This people unfortunately still don’t understand that copyrights holder are doomed to disappear at the bottom of the virtual sea.
You took down the site but you didn’t shut up. You never did, never will.

That sorted, you wish to declare open Hanging Gardens and Other Tales! the newest project you’re involved in.
Today you started the 2 weeks lab at Carriageworks, as part of the Underbelly Lab/Festival.
See here and come by to say hi!

Published by info on June 30th, 2008 | Filed under Other's Weeds Art, underbelly, wide weeds debate | 2 Comments »