Justine Roche

Wetlands are one of the most naturally diverse biomes in the world, yet they have a dark past, both physically and metaphorically. Eighty-seven per cent of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed over the past 300 years in the name of agricultural and urban development. Despite this devastation, the ‘psyche’ of wetlands has proven difficult to erase. Neither land nor water, and constantly in a transitory state, wetlands swell in flood and contract in drought, ignoring containment by human intervention. Dispelling adverse historical associations, wetlands have crossed a threshold from being unwanted to much-needed.
Justine’s series, Dark Eden, explores the emotive response to the space between the material and the undefinable, sanctuary and vulnerability, and permanence and ephemerality. These works engage with the historical, sensorial, and imagined understandings of wetlands, along with the possibilities for reframing their representation into one of protection and preservation. Mysticism, mythology, the unseen, and elusive fragments are considered along with the ways memory, culture, personal experience, and photography influence our perception of these critical habitats