A collaboration between Morgan Hogg and Paris Taia.

Our Garden of Seven Stones became a reflection of our personal and collective stories, being biracial, Pasifika, displaced and institutionalised. Recognising the ancestral lineage, we come from and the support within the community we have today. These floral arranged islands represent our sensory understanding of place, longing and home. Utilising gardenia, lilies, jasmine and carnations as visual and fragrant memory of the islands, the domestic setting and family, something we found to resonate with a lot of the general public. Additionally, making the space as a navigational journey, like Tupaia’s understanding of navigation, we wanted people to venture through our work and replicate their own stories in which they resonated with.

This work was developed though the Art Gallery of NSW and Sydney Worldpride for Art after hours. We transformed the Meers Hall at AGNSW into an immersive landscape that altered throughout the hour and featured an oceanic soundscape by artist Del Lumanta.

Morgan Hogg & Paris Taia, Garden of Seven Stones, 2023, performance, Art after Hours: Reverberations, AGNSW, Sydney. Documentation by Isabelle Virrey.