Embodied Remedies: Plant Medicine in the Art of Fiona Hall, Janet Laurence and Lauren Berkowitz

Abstract

This dissertation examines the work of three contemporary Australian women artists - Fiona Hall, Janet Laurence and Lauren Berkowitz - who all explore the themes of health, healing and botanical medicine in their works of art. Focusing primarily on their works from the 1990s and 2000s - a period marked by a growing belief in the infallibility of medicine, counter-culture scepticism of this paradigm, and a growing interest in alternative approaches to wellness - this dissertation examines how botanical medicine functions as a recurring, yet critically under-explored motif in their artworks.

The central claim of this dissertation is that Hall, Laurence and Berkowitz use medicinal plant materials, alongside references to botanical medicine, not merely for aesthetic or symbolic purposes, but as a means to examine the critical cultural place of plants in therapeutic healing and to question the ways in which these plants have been appropriated by scientific medicine. Hall, Laurence and Berkowitz all draw on the long history of plant medicine to provide feminist perspectives on the medicalisation of contemporary society. Through installations, sculptures, photographs, paintings and mixed-media works that foreground the sensory, ecological and historical dimensions of medicinal plants, these artists explore the entanglements between nature, colonialism, capitalism and care. They use the themes of medicine, science, alchemy and magic to forge connections between nature and culture. This study situates art as a vital tool for reimagining medical care and agency beyond the confines of neo-liberal value systems. By tracing the intersections between art, nature and healthcare in their practices, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of how contemporary art can serve as a site for reimagining relationships between health, illness and the natural world. Show more