The Hairy Panic is a series of photographs and land art installations that took place in the farmland surrounding Lake George, NSW, Australia, Gundungurra People’s land. Sovereignty was never ceded. The Installation consisted of pink hybrid tumbleweeds made of industrial fencing steel and human hair placed within the drought stricken pastoral landscape.
The name of the work comes from the press coverage of the 2016 invasion of the Australian town Wangaratta by “Pancium effuse” a native species of tumbleweed. An overgrowth of the “native weed” occurs due to dry and windy conditions combined with soil toxicity levels brought on through industrialised agriculture that causes the plant to thrive. The plant when consumed by agricultural livestock can cause toxicity exhibited through photosensitivity and blisters.
The choice to name the project after this event came from wanting a way to share a narrative with the viewer that causes them to reflect on our relationship with the land and how something comes to be labeled a weed. The work reflects on the history and politics behind the aesthetics of landscape documentation as both a means of production and as a means of aesthetic communication of what it is to be labelled alien.
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly