Because We Can by Ian Gibbins
An exemplary videopoem by Ian Gibbins, blending the natural and the artificial into a poetic whole. Because We Can “was originally developed for an exhibition at FELTspace Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia, in November, 2023,” according to a recent post on Ian’s blog.
“We purify, filter, sift, rectify, unburden… stupefy, impose, stun, devastate, overwhelm… radiate, bewitch…”
But why? Why do we cause so much damage to our own environment, and then spend so much in attempting to recreate it after our own designs? What is it that underlies our desire to transform the natural world into something of our own making?
Botanic Gardens symbolise the tension between the human desire to admire nature and to control it. Almost none of the vegetation in a Botanic Garden is native to the area. Consequently, the original local environment must be skilfully managed and manipulated to provide diverse growth conditions suitable for exotic plants from all over the world. At the same time, the Gardens must be somehow attractive to human visitors. In a dry climate such as South Australia, the fundamental key to meeting both these demands is the controlled supply of water.
Although a major function of modern botanic gardens is dedicated to preserving and understanding endangered species, many were originally established to celebrate and illustrate the achievements of the colonialist enterprise.
In this video, we see the different ways in which water inhabits the interfaces between the natural and the manufactured. Now and then, we catch a glimpse of a reflection or shadow of the on-lookers, the passers-by, the lives that impact on everything they touch. Yet nothing here is as it seems: every scene has been composited from multiple sources with a single botanic garden.
All the original video and audio was recorded with a mobile phone at Adelaide Botanic Garden around Kainka Wirra on unceded Kaurna land, South Australia. The text is derived by thesaurus substitution from samples off the Adelaide Botanic Garden website.
I’ve spent plent of time in botanical gardens over the years, so I was struck by how well the film captures their essence without actually focusing on the plants themselves, approaching the subject matter sideways, as successful poems so often do.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
