Based on the premise that any object is part of a collective, just as any human is part of a group, and by extension that any organism is part of a larger ecosystem, this work continues Partners Hill’s interest in building for collectives and therefore deploying individual pieces (destined to take their place in a space) as part of an ensemble, as part of a boundary maker, as a communicative clan.

The work explores the potentially devastating impact of the human species interventions on the natural world - specifically within the context of the fragile environment of the Himalayas, a site of incredible diversity and, coincidentally, home to TibetSydney’s workshop and studio for the last 25 years. As Tariq Aziz, the leader of WWF’s Living Himalayas Initiative warns, “People and wildlife form a rich mosaic of life across this rugged and remarkable landscape, making it among the biologically richest areas on Earth. But the Himalayas are also among the most vulnerable to global climate change.”

Each of the Himalayan animal species represented in the work face extinction either through environmental degradation, climate change or limitations on political borders which inhibit genetic diversity.

The family of pieces gather around a woven representation of a receding glacial lake – beautiful in its depth of colour but at the same time a chilling reminder of the human-induced degradation of the environment upon which these creatures depend for their survival.