The Transplants: 1st Configuration
Temporary collage in wooden box
2018-2019

The TRANSPLANT collages were created from photographs taken in Kew Botanical Gardens in London and photographs of flora in Penang. During my art residency in London, I had taken a lot of reference photos and built up a library of images that I could use. I was searching for a way to express my feelings of belonging in a foreign place and the sense of alienation in Malaysia and thought to combine the images from London with images from Penang. I selected images that provided plenty of plant material to work with and began the process of cutting and rearranging the separate elements until I have a form which I was satisfied with. I only chose to use plant forms to create these hybrids as this was an extension of the Strange Botanicals series and related to what I had explored in London. The collages were then arranged in a wooden box and photographed. They weren’t fixed in place therefore the composition is fluid and can be changed every time.

Bibidari created from a mixture of tropical and temperate plants.

Raksasas assembled from photos of a woodpile in Kew Gardens, fleshed out with fungi and leaves from Penang.

The process of excising and assembling.

What’s been made new and what’s left behind.