Paula Broom’s exhibit is showing at GKJE Gallery 1 in Sydney, Australia during the month of September.

Here, in her own words, she tells us a bit about herself and how the exhibit came about:

I am a visual artist and iPhoneographer, currently working on an exhibition and social media project that explores issues of biodiversity loss, extinction and conservation. In March and April this year, scientists at the Australian Museum kindly opened their doors and allowed me access to photograph threatened and endangered native species, mostly lesser known invertebrates from their collections, and ask them endless questions about their research.

The first species I photographed at the Museum was Thersites mitchellae or Mitchell’s rainforest snail from north eastern NSW. It has lost much of its coastal habitat to land clearing for development, with the small remnant areas of habitat still at risk of further urban expansion. In my image “High Rise Reverberation” (below), a composite image and one of my more figurative ones, I juxtaposed the snail shells with an image of a high rise development, one of the very drivers of its demise, in order to play on ideas of displacement and habitat.

The beauty of this next species rather eluded me, even using the macro lens of my olloclip: this was the endangered Pericryptodrilus nanus, or the Lord Howe earthworm. At threat of extinction, it is only found in the Mount Gower area of Lord Howe Island. It took a lot of playful editing before I succeeded in showing this species in a much more abstracted way, which I feel it needed for interest.

The beach hoppers (Microrchestia bousfieldi) from the South West Rocks area of NSW were a lot more interesting and detailed to look at. They feed on detritus in the intertidal zone and are removed from the ecosystem with seaweed harvesting and clearing, as undertaken on many Australian beaches. This threatens not only their survival but that of the seabirds and other species that rely on them. The image of these beach hoppers, “Shallow Grave”, has been edited to resemble an old fashioned “plate” from an encyclopaedia.

The image, “Fade Away” has one of my photos of a Corroboree Frog disappearing into a superimposed background map of its home range. The critically endangered Southern Corroboree Frog, the Pseudophryne corroboree from the Kosciuszko National Park, is dangerously close to becoming extinct in the wild, predominantly due to a disease called chytridiomycosis that is responsible for amphibian extinctions worldwide. When live, Corroboree Frogs are quite striking and instantly recognisable, having an almost stripped black and yellow pattern over their bodies: preserved in alcohol, they lose their colouring. Looking at their little, lifeless bodies, tags and all, almost stockpiled in the storage jars, I had the uncomfortable thought that perhaps there were more Corroboree Frogs, albeit dead, in those jars than in the wild nowadays. Surprisingly I found it more challenging producing imagery for these little critters than I did for the invertebrate species.

Sadly the survival of many species nowadays relies on the interventions of scientists. Invertebrates aren’t to everyone’s liking for sure, and indeed they are often much neglected components of our ecosystems that we fail to recognise. If a much cherished and striking creature like the Corroboree Frog is not immune from threat of extinction, you have to ask yourself what chance to our less attractive species have? I realised though from talking to the passionate scientists who devote their entire lives to researching these species that having a thorough understanding of ecology and ecosystems makes you aware that everything is important in the overall equation and that, in the end, looks aren’t everything. It got me thinking that if ecology was taught, much like English and mathematics, from primary school upwards, then perhaps we wouldn’t currently be causing the World’s sixth mass extinction ever.

{Grryo is hosting a challenge on Instagram related to this exhibition for the month of September. Visit the feed if you’d like to participate.}

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