Pictured: Australia’s (Re)Constitution shown at QUT University in June 2022, and will be shown at Griffith University Art Museum in November 2022, as part of group show - More-Than-Human-Governance curated by Hira Sheik. Australia’s (Re)Constitution, 2022
(un)constitution | (de)constitution| (re)constitution |
Eucalyptus bark (paper & ink), pocket edition constitution (paper), beeswax, cotton thread.
In this future the constitution of so-called Australia has been unconstituted, deconstituted and reconstituted by the more-than-human world. The rights of nature are enshrined into the most important legal document in Australia; embedding the inalienable property rights of the koala, the political participation of the eucalypt, the powers of the Queen-Bee, the parliamentary processes of the microbial senate, the role of the mycelium judiciary and the human entanglement within this multispecies legislature.
Legislative power
- The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen-Bee, a Microbial Senate and a Multispecies House of Representatives, and which is hereinafter called “The Parliament”, or ‘The Parliament of the Commonwealth”.
This future is a softer world, where trees have rights and politicians swear their allegiance to the earth, where key decisions are vested in the Queen-Bee and final judgement is held by the mycelial judicature in the Underground Court.
In Australia’s (Re)Constitution, Davies has deconstructed the current Constitution applying a multispecies lens to (re)constitute the document both materially through making a book from delicate paper made using eucalyptus bark and old constitutions – sewn together with beeswax thread and through language articulating a new power and governance structure embedded in a more-than-human world.