As the first exhibition in the newly renovated galleries of Artspace Sydney, can you speak about the way on which your multipart project untitled (transcriptions of country) (2023) bridges colonial history and contemporary society?

The installation is a part of an extensive research project that has taken on numerous forms in recent years. The overriding form or concept is translation and its ability to infuse new life and context into something, or conversely, to distort it by stripping away subtext. These 306 embroideries of colonial-era collections and archives, based on the material collected during the French expedition (1800–03) to Australia, are an example of this call-and-response idea.

Much of what the French collected was lost, along with the expedition’s historical significance after the demise of the Napoleonic Empire. One remaining archive includes thousands of Australian plant specimens that were sent back to Paris and are now housed at the National Herbarium. I had the opportunity to examine these static specimens, which starkly contrast the vast, interconnected plant knowledge held by many Aboriginal Elders. I wanted to explore how we might repatriate them. That thinking inspired the artwork, which primarily comprises embroideries made by migrant women of the plants from the French collection—a translation of a translation, if you will.