Abbra Kotlarczyk, ‘Love Triage I & II’, 2024, Image by Tay Haggarty. Tiana Jefferies, ‘getting a grip’, 2023, Image by Louis Lim. Tay Haggarty, ‘BIRDWATCHER’, 2024 Image by Tay Haggarty. Seren Wagstaff, ‘Garden Variety Dykes’, 2024, Image by Seren Wagstaff. Seren Wagstaff, ‘We who were digging’, 2024, Image by Tay Haggarty. Seren Wagstaff & Tay Haggarty, BIRD SEED, 2024, Image by Tay Haggarty.

GARDEN VARIETY DYKES

Tay Haggarty, Abbra Kotlarczyk, Tiana Jefferies, Seren Wagstaff, Amy Sargeant & Annie Monks

Content Warning: Adult themes, soft nudity and sexual gestures in video work.

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Garden Variety Dykes is a group show inspired by the PDF of the same name; ‘Garden Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions in Gardening’ edited by Irene Reti and Valerie Jean Chase in 1994. The show will exhibit artworks by Abbra Kotlarczyk, Seren Wagstaff Tiana Jefferies and Tay Haggarty. Each artist will create new work that directly references one chapter from the heartfelt publication. The works will be accompanied by a soundscape from Amy Sargeant and public programs by Annie Monks. With each contribution, this exhibition dives into queer ecologies, puts forward questions surrounding the continuation of a queer linage in climate activism and explores sapphic yearning in the garden space.

Abbra Kotlarczyk’s (She/her) ‘Love Triage I & II’ form part of an ongoing series of visual poems that function as personal ads for non-human entities. These one-liners undoubtedly take inspiration from the work of David McDiarmid /// FIERCE BITCH SEEKS FUTURE HUSBAND (‘Rainbow Aphorisms’ series, 1994) /// Thirty years on, queers are still seeking love and equality, with the desire lines extending deep into the heart of the environmental crisis. Tiana Jefferies (She/her) ‘Getting a grip’ self-reflexively pokes fun at the suburban backyard culture Jefferies grew up in, as she couldn’t wait to shake off the hetero relationships entangled in this fenced green space. The work resembles green rubber snakes channel falling thunderstorms into a spurt, a dribble, a leak.

Tay Haggarty (They/them) has created ‘BIRD WATCHER’, a sculptural garden bench made from recycled materials. The work was inspired by ‘The Safe Sex Way to Garden’ chapter the publication, and champions resourcefulness, inclusivity and collaboration as key principles in the sapphic garden space. The work invites the viewer to come take a seat and spend time to think about dyke desire, rest, visibility and who is really watching who? In ‘We who were digging’, Seren Wagstaff (she/her) contributes to the representations of the traditional environments in which lesbians exist and thrive in. Through an exposed patch of dirt beneath her Queenslander home, she tinkers with metronormativity by questioning the idea that metropolitan spaces are inherently more liberating for queer individuals.

Reference: Reti, I., & Chase, V. J. (1994). Garden variety dykes: Lesbian Traditions in Gardening. Herbooks.