This project extends Nicholas Burridge's earlier work Explosive Forming, rooted in research on the Footscray Munitions Factories and their production of explosives. For the Vitrine Gallery, this history is reworked into brass vessels formed not by hydraulic rams but by controlled gunpowder detonations. Each blast reshapes the brass and begins a process of it reacting and patinating in response to its environment.
The materials of gunpowder (potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur) are the creative force in this exhibition. Long before they were engineered into explosives, these same ingredients were central to soil restoration and early fertiliser production. This dual lineage anchors the work: substances linked to both nourishment and destruction return to the Western Volcanic Plains, a landscape depleted by colonial agriculture and industrial blasting.
Endangered plants from the Western Volcanic Plains are grown in these brass vessels, using the same materials that shaped the vessels to support the plants regrowth. They embody a duality, carrying the memory of extractive force while redirecting that energy toward care.