PODOCARPACEAE / Dacrycarpus – PANDANACEAE / Freycinetia
2009-2013; Book and Cuttings, Dimensions Variable

A book occupies a very particular space, and looking at a book has a particular temporality. It collapses into itself the vast area the multiple sheets of paper would otherwise occupy. The folded, stacked and bound sheets necessitates a slow, page-by-page manner of looking, demanding the time of addressing each page as an individual space.

Audrey Eagle’s extraordinary book, Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand encapsulates 50 years of her work, and records every specimen of woody flora from across the entirety of New Zealand.

Through taking my own cuttings from each page of Eagle’s work, my installation allows the images to escape the collapsed space of the book and bypass its page-by-page temporality by presenting, at a single glance, part of every illustrated page. In the remaining book, the removed images confound expectations, disrupting the viewing experience through the many areas of absence.

Eagle, Audrey. (2006). Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand. Te Papa Press: Wellington