Mutualism: a place called Bungalook

Drawing on the history of antimony mining in the Maroondah region during the nineteenth century, this exhibition explores a symbolic link between its industrial past and a critically endangered species of the present – the Kilsyth South Spider-orchid, of which only three plants are known to survive in the wild. The circular symbiotic dance of the orchid, the wasp and the fungus in the fragile ecology of Bungalook Conservation Reserve is the central theme of Mutualism. The exhibition invites a deep and embodied interrogation of our present-day urban lives, as a way to re-imagine our future.