The Laboratory Gardens

The Laboratory Gardens is a student elective run across three years for research and design lab Project Toria, and hosted at the Melbourne School of Design campus, University of Melbourne. My teaching partner Lucy Moroney and I have been producing and teaching a series of intensive 2-week units for Architecture, Landscape and Graphic Design students.

2022-24

Background
Project (Vic)Toria
Unit 2: The Laboratory Gardens

The Laboratory Gardens is a two-week elective for Melbourne University and the Architectural Association of London.

Responsibilities
 Brief Design · Project Management · Workshop Faciliation · Tutoring · Photography · Videography · Editing · Guest Crit

Credits
Collaborator and Teaching Partner: architect Lucy Moroney
Guest Faciliators: historian and academic Bill Gammage, RBGV creative producer Sally McPhee, sound artist Patrick Cronin, artist and curator Erin Mathews, and Bush Heritage.
Site Visits: John Douglas Reserve (Dja Dja Wurrung) and Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

We designed our inaugural brief in 2022 to look at the stories we tell ourselves—and others—about discovery, and the narratives we form in the process. We organised a series of workshops, site visits and guest speakers, and guided participants through various techniques of immersive storytelling.

Led by landscape and First Nations historian Bill Gammage, alongside representatives from Bush Heritage, students explored the notion of the ‘wild’ as a myth that negates the agency and cultural participation that has directly shaped and influenced the landscape around us.

Enriching our programme with a deep understanding of audio production, were sound artist Patrick Cronin and the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria placemaking producer Sally McPhee—co-creators of Sonica Botanica: Stories and Sounds from the Gardens.

Artist and Curator Erin Mathews, from touring arts organisation Nets Victoria, helped us to dissect the role of a curator, as a storyteller.

These workshops and site visits helped students to find ways to communicate a catalogue of the senses they had surveyed. The body of work culminated in a series of multi-sensory installations and performances.

Year one: The myth of wilderness

For our first year, we focused on the 1788 period, delving into the colonial narratives surrounding Australian wilderness. Inspired by the work of Bill Gammage, The biggest estate on earth: how Aborigines made Australia, we examined the concept of the gentrified park during the picturesque movement. We looked at how colonists perceived the Australian landscape as a park.

Our investigation delved into the practice of economic botany during the expansion of the colonies. We explored the role of taxonomy and classification in shaping perceptions of the Australian environment during this period.

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