Sound of Lotus Cyanotypes

Sound of Lotus is a body of work I created during a four month Asia Link Residency in Sri Lanka. I spent my time there working alongside gardeners and landscape architects at Lunuganga, an estate designed by the architect Geoffrey Bawa in the 1950s in a style that combines European and Eastern aesthetics. Sound of Lotus comprises a series of cyanotype photograms of everyday objects, such as brooms, fishing nets, woven mats and rice, and plants from the garden; a series of water colours; site specific wool/acrylic thread drawings; and sound recordings.

Every morning I woke to the sound of the gardeners sweeping with hand crafted ekel brooms. I recorded the rhythmic sound and collected brooms from nearby villages to weave into and print as cyanotypes. The site specific drawings mapped the repetitive daily movements of the gardeners and house staff throughout the garden. I painted water colours of the lotus ponds, the wetlands and Buddhist motifs that I saw in local temples.

Sound of Lotus was exhibited at Paradise Road Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2001. The Sound of Lotus cyanotypes were shown at Mori Gallery, Sydney in 2002 and in 2006 at the National Gallery of Victoria, in Light Sensitive: Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund, curated by Isobel Crombie.