The Collection

My practice currently focuses on the reassessing of colonial histories through experimental printed matter and digital spaces. Since I was introduced to William Gardiner’s beautifully scribed 1848 Herbarium volumes in the University of Dundee’s achieves, I have become highly interested in the handwritten right curly bracket mark and its relationship to collections. For this piece entitled ‘The Collection’, printed matter has been intentionally removed, to create a ‘Deconstructed essay’. The piece presents a series of handwritten right curly brackets from Gardiner’s Herbarium volumes within a looping animation. These brackets of varying dimensions are connected as one pulsating form and are accompanied by a narrated text which reflects on the borders that this abstract organiser mark produces.