Hebarium for the End of the Millenium - Waratah

myrtle, blackwood, Tasmanian eucalypt, sassafras and banksia, series of stacking containers with display lid and one drawer, brass fittings and glass, 1996, with drawings by John Wolseley, 1996, 2001, (152 x 40 x 40cm, open)

This cabinet is one of 4 made originally for the exhibition, Patagonia to Tasmania: Origin, Movement , Species, Tracing the Southern Continents by John Wolseley in 1996.

This exhibition considered the idea of continental drift and the separation of Australia and South America from the supercontinent Gondwana.

Wolseley commissioned Linda Fredheim to make a set of cabinets to contain drawings and diagrams of plants that continued to evolve as the continental plates drifted apart.

Each of the cabinets is made up of layers of time, with each of the epochs marked with a different timber. In this way the cabinet retains the suggestion of a museum collecting cabinet, whilst creating something of the appearance of a geological core.

Collection John Wolseley