Yesterday I went ‘wildflowering’ which was a most appropriate way to mark the start of our new endeavour. Over the past few years I’ve curated a series of exhibitions that began with one entitled ‘Wild/flower Women’. The focus of the first was to highlight the work of two female artist/environmentalists - Kathleen McArthur and Judith Wright - and the ongoing relevance of their work. At the time their names had disappeared from accounts being published about the Cooloola Campaign - one of great significance for our region but also environmental activism. I wanted to restore their names to the public record and to create a living legacy through creative action.
One exhibition organically led to another and now 10 years later there have been over a dozen exhibitions. Individual exhibitions have been created for the Sunshine Coast, Gympie, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and the Fryer Library, University of Queensland. The ‘Wildflowering by Design’ exhibition then toured seven sites across Queensland. Along the way other curators and artists have become involved through local iterations and local components of the shows. When the last exhibition closed at the end of 2025 a phase had ended. There was post-exhibition blues, and a feeling there was still something more. There was a desire to continue the type of work that happened with the Wildflowering by Design tour and create a community of practice to enable that to happen. So we have set up a ‘thing’, an organisational umbrella, an association. We’ve called it The Wildflowering Collective Inc and plan to do more of what we’ve done before … nature walkshops, workshops, design labs, and who knows what else. We’ll gently ‘wildflower’ our way forward.
So what is ‘wildflowering’?
The term wildflowering was coined by artists and environmentalists Kathleen McArthur and Judith Wright to describe a past-time they enjoyed sharing together. When they met in the 1950s, Kathleen had been building her personal practice through botanical art and writing, as she sought to learn about the native plants that grew around her home location. Judith Wright was a renowned Australian poet, having met with national acclaim with her first book of poetry in 1946 and more in the years since. Kathleen had written to Kathleen and sent a book for Judith and Jack McKinney’s daughter Meredith. The book was by two of Kathleen’s cousins, creatives also of some renown, Mary and Elizabeth Durack. The letter piqued the interest of Wright, who invited Kathleen to visit her home on Tambourine Mountain. A friendship was forged and in the years following they shared visits and began ‘wildflowering’.
‘Wildflowering’ was not simply about an interest in wildflowers, but a way of seeing and engaging with the world. For me, wildflowering is about slowing down, noticing, appreciating, learning, seeing, sharing - with the flowers, plants and others within the natural world, including humans!
Kathleen described it as an “art of seeing” that welcomed artistic and poetic approaches alongside the scientific.
Going wildflowering means different things to different people. There are those who, with magnifying glass before their eyes, looking every inch the scientist, count stamens, measure hairs, pigeon-hole all the definitive features neatly in order and scoff at common names. Others bring with them an artistic inclination, noting the colours and shapes and shadows in the intimate and in the general landscape. Then there are those precious few who find poetry in a Helmut Orchid ‘leaning its ear to the ground’; see ‘the trigger-flower striking the bee’; find secrets in Sun Orchids; see Irises as ‘lilac butterflies’ and a fox in a Yellow Doubletail …
There are as many different ways to approach the ‘art of seeing’ as there are people who think and feel and one way is as worthy as any other to make of it an enjoyably sensuous experience… (McArthur, 1986, pp 52-53.)
This elaborates on what is therefore a mode of creative practice, it is grounded in deep attention, in noticing, in learning, in sharing and doing. It helps you make connections: to place, to other living things, and to those you share it with. It is about forming relationships and a culture of care.
Relationships of care (aka beyond ‘I love nature’)
Just about everyone says ‘I love nature’, but what does that mean? Is that love part of a healthy relationship? If it is, what type of relationships is it, is it a one-sided relationship, or what’s in it for nature? If you enter into a relationship with a human, you get to know them, learn their name, a little about their background, find out what they like. So the least we can do with ‘nature’ is the same, choose something to get to know, find out a little about them, form a relationship.
Thinking about our relationship with nature brings to mind that of ‘I/Thou relationships as described by Martin Buber. Buber was a twentieth century philosopher who described two major ways people could relate to other people and the environment: these being ‘I/Thou’ or an ‘I/It’ relationships. ‘I/Thou’ relationships feature an authentic, wholistic connection and affinity, a mutual relationship that is respectful and caring. This is differentiated from the ‘I/It’ relationship which is more of a monologue where other things, people and the environment are treated as objects to be used (Buber, 1958; Rotenstreich, 1991/2010). It is possible to have ‘I/Thou’ relationships even with the plants and other living things that we use and consume, but that involves respect, consideration and an ethics of care. It might involve getting to know what originally grew where you live, planting local natives, restoring habitat, caring about what might be lost with that new development or road.
When you come to pay attention, to learn, to form a relationship - you quickly find yourself coming to care about these other living things, their fate and their future. You may find an interest becomes an obsession, a passion, an artform, a prompt for action.
Of course these concepts of relationship with nature and place are not new - notions of connection, Country and kinship are central to First Nations people identity and world views. For them, it wasn’t/isn’t just a pleasant past-time, such knowledge was essential for survival. Knowing the plants and other living things wasn’t only about fulfilling some sense of belonging, but knowing what you could eat, use as medicine, use to make shelters and more. I always love experiencing the 'Welcome to Country’ that one of our local First Nations custodians Lyndon Davis conducts. He always shares different stories of the relationships between what might be flowering. and what else that might signal. Such knowledge brings the landscape alive and adds whole dimension of ‘seeing’.
Back to wildflowering though … How to begin?
So back to wildflowering. It’s not just about wildflowers… but it can be. It is a practice that can be engaged in so many ways. For me, the wildflowering journey started with the story of the women, then reading their books, seeing Kathleen’s wildflower works and starting to curate an exhibition. I wondered, ‘why don’t I know these plants and their names’? ‘Do they still grow in the region today or have they all been lost’? I joined some organised walks, I was entranced and intrigued. I fell down the rabbit hole. It might be wildflowers, or it might be something else for you, as it is for some of our other collective members. Our members have various interests across the art/nature/science spectrum, and work with various art forms and media.
It might start with a walk, something in nature that sparks an interest or curiosity. It can often feel overwhelming to start learning about the wildflowers or other focus in nature. I often say just find three things, such as three new plants in flower this season, or three different species in the same family (that was how I learnt about our local banksias for example, and that became a mini project for a time). Choose something, find their names (common and/or botanical, I’m not a purist), read up on them, draw them… if you do that you will never forget them! Find a focus to begin with and expand from there. Gradually your knowledge grows! (And you can share it too, see for example my iNaturalist profile).
The wildflowering experience is also more rewarding when you share it with others. So that is what we hope to do, and that is why we want to record it and write about it. This is the first piece being published, but there’ll be more, with other members writing and sharing their thoughts and practice as we go. In the meantime… why not go wild, go wildflowering!
Susan Davis (PhD, OAM)
The Wildflowering Collective
References
Buber, Martin. I and Thou. (R. G. Smith, Trans.). New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1986.
McArthur, Kathleen. Looking at Australian Wildflowers. Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, NSW, 1986.
Image credits: Banksia aemula (top), Drosera lunata (left), Psychotria loniceroides (right), Images by Sue Davis, Wildflowering Women (middle) Image by Fiona Harding, 2026.