Weeds are the boundary breakers, the stateless minority,  who remind us that life is just not that tidy. They could help us learn to live across natures borderlines again.

(Richard Mabey, Weeds, Pg. 291-292)

 

The Fragility of Things alludes to notions of hostility and survival in times of uncertainty. A ‘Non-place’ is a neologism coined by French anthropologist Marc Augé. It refers to anthropological spaces of transience, which do not hold enough significance to be regarded as places, where human beings remain anonymous. While gathering material for this installation I have found myself wandering in non-places; wastelands, derelict sites, roadsides and roundabouts. The unregarded territories where life thrives on the fringes, laying root in unsettled ground, obstructing our orderly maps of the world.

 

Writer Richard Mabey considers how the maligning of weeds as ‘undesirable outcasts’ can be interpreted as  a cultural signifier that shapes hostile attitudes towards our environment, a poignant  metaphor that echoes current perspectives on migration.

 

In essence, The Fragility of Things acknowledges our rapidly changing world and the devastating effects of ecological imbalance that continue to bring uncertainty, trauma and loss to displaced populations globally.