Orchadia, 2023

Photograph on Hahnemmühle photo matt fibre paper

85 x 185 cm

Post-invasion, many orchids have been lost due to land clearing of their habitat in Australia. Cemeteries and golf courses have often been a refuge for remnant vegetation. One such refuge is a private golf club on unceded Kaurna land, which contains the last remaining island of red sandhills and native pine forest, housing the Oligochaetochilus arenicola, commonly known as the Sandhill Greenhood Orchid, in its understorey. Craven has an intimate knowledge of the golf course, through her professional background as a landscape architect. Inspired by lost worlds and the unexpected utopias of golf, Craven’s photograph proposes the orchid as a ‘site of resistance’. She questions the site’s inherent contradictions and tensions, pasts and possible futures, and the complexities of capitalist public/private thresholds. Craven is an artist working across sculpture and installation—including photography.