Coralis Australis was a research project on “Miniatures” and was developed in my 3rd year Applied Arts degree at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia. Interested by the Great Barrier Reef structure, which is to my knowledge, the largest living organism created by minute creatures, I focused on the details of this gigantic structure for this work.
Coral is the skeletal remain secreted by the polyp. The polyp cannot survive without its symbiotic partner algae. To study this better I started to collect macro photographs. I also found some research documents and drawing from CSIRO websites.
Looking at these rectangular pictures was like looking through a microscope at minute organisms placed in between 2 glass plates. I consciously chose to display my work in the same rectangular format. There are four pieces in this display. Each of them represents part of to the symbiotic evolution of the reef.
From left to right:
The first one represents the symbiotic algae on a tentacle of the polyp.
The second is the whole polyp.
The third shows a branch of coral with the colouration of the polyp with the algae.
Finally the coral ring; there to remind us of the human impact on a reef.