Dianna Wells

 Looking Closer is an archive of photographic lumen prints created from endangered indigenous grassland specimens primarily grown in my back yard in Melbourne, Australia.

During the pandemic my practice transferred from site-based work to working with prints, made by directly exposing plants onto photo sensitive material with sunlight and fixing them in my darkroom.

 Working with indigenous plants, I gained a reverence and respect for Victoria’s grasslands as it once existed. A human landscape controlled by fire, rejuvenating annually over the cooler winter months, grasslands provided a habitat for native fauna and a food source for Victoria’s indigenous population.

There is grief associated with the loss of an ecosystem, but also the potential for healing and regeneration with the resurgence of grassland plantings in our city and suburbs. I believe that understanding resilience and recovery is the pathway forward in these times of change with bushfires, climate change and pandemic.