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Seed Pod Time Capsule at Oku-Noto Triennale

Oku-Noto Triennale 2023
Location: Suzu Municipal Nursery, Suzu, Ishikawa, Japan

Kamishibai “Mafu en Suzu” 2023 in collaboration with:
Concept, storyboard and script by Gary Warner
Original hand made paintings by Mamisan Furukawa
Performance by the Acorn Society
Production: Teresa Kurome

"Seed Pod Time Capsule" refers to the abandoned nursery which was chosen by Maria Fernanda Cardoso as her site. It had been closed with everything on it, including children’s toys, some of their artworks and their library of kamishibai, books and records. Each room within the building served as a time capsule, mirroring the concept of the local seed pods that were incorporated into the artworks. These seed pods, in turn, act as time capsules destined for the future.

While walking along Suzu's beach, Maria Fernanda found some strange seedpods that resembled miniature bats. The Suzu community helped her in gathering 9,000 of these seeds, known as caltrops. They also helped her collect 4,234 camellia woody seed pods which have a beautiful way of transforming themselves from round seed pods to a unique appearance that resembles a flower-like shape. The artwork only included camellias that were flat enough and hadn't lost their stems, which served as natural tripods so they would stand up on their own, facing the viewers as they explored one of the rooms of the abandoned nursery. The Suzu community also collected 20,000 Japanese pinecones that became a mural for the Oku-Noto Triennale.

Another room drew inspiration from a collection of kamishibai found at the Nursery. Kamishibai is a distinctive form of Japanese street theatre and storytelling that gained popularity during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Each illustration had text in the back that could be read and presented to a group of children. The exhibition featured an authentic kamishibai theatre mounted on a bicycle and a series of hand painted illustrations by a local artist and baker Mamisan Furukawa. The artworks told the story of “Mafu in Suzu” (Mafu being Maria Fernanda’s nickname), tracing her journey from her start as a curious child fascinated with insects to various significant milestones in her career. The Australian artist Gary Warner was behind the concept, script and storyboard and the performances were by the Acorn society.

The rest of the rooms at the nursery were left as ‘Time Capsules’ with white gauze fabric stretched across the open doorways and windows. The remnant furniture and items in these spaces were organised by Maria Fernanda so that visitors could peer through to see the arrangements.

Photos by: Kichiro Okamura

This is a true story about the life of an artist.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso was born in Bogota, Colombia in South America. Her mother and father were architects. When she was young, people called her Mafu - a nickname still used by her friends and family.

Mafu was a child who was fascinated by animals and plants and fungi and rocks and everything around her in the natural world, so her dad took her on hiking trips in the countryside to explore and find interesting creatures.

She looked closely at flies and ants, and flowers and seedpods, the bark of trees and lichens on boulders.

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One day, when she was a teenager, Mafu was looking at a big book about the famous Italian renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci.

Looking at his amazing drawings of plants and human bodies and imaginary machines, Mafu decided that’s what she wanted to do - she wanted to be an artist and a scientist just like Leonardo.

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So Mafu went to art school at a University in Bogota and then to the famous Yale University in the United States. She lived in San Francisco and had a studio there where she started making sculptures from natural things like gourds, corn and dried starfish. And she had an exciting new idea - to create a Flea Circus!

Once, when she was in Canada at an artist residency, she met another artist and went to Australia with him - on the other side of the world - where they got married and now live together with their two children.

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When Mafu arrived in Australia she was amazed by the strange animals she met - like kangaroos, emus, wombats, lyrebirds and noisy cockatoos.

And the Australian plants, flowers and trees were also very new and strange to her.

By that time, Mafu had learnt to train fleas and was re-inventing herself as Professor Cardoso, Queen of the Fleas. She needed fleas to be performers in The Cardoso Flea Circus, so she looked for fleas on some kangaroos she met.

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After years of research, experiments and hard work, Professor Cardoso Queen of the Fleas was ready to bring her The Cardoso Flea Circus to the world.

She first performed her Flea Circus at the famous Exploratorium in San Francisco and later in Paris, New York and at the Sydney Opera House.

Audiences were surprised by the feats of strength, balance and daring that Mafu’s tiny trained fleas performed in their circus arena. Their feats were shown live on big video screens and nobody could work out if it was real or trickery. - But, it WAS real!

Professor Cardoso Queen of the Fleas - Mafu - had researched the biology of fleas and created inventive situations for them to react in their natural way to light, heat, breath and vibrations.

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After the success of The Cardoso Flea Circus, Mafu became fascinated by another group of Australian creatures - the incredibly beautiful and strange jumping peacock spiders of the genus Maratus.

Male maratus spiders dance, to impress female maratus spiders. And their tiny bodies are remarkable works of natural art. They have intricate metallic shiny patterns on their abdomens that they raise up behind them and wave their arms and tap their feet as they move from side to side and forward and back.

Mafu wanted to show the world how remarkable these tiny little spiders are, so she worked with scientists, filmmakers and a high-tech museum photographer to create new videos and pictures.

These new artworks were shown all over the world - in Hong Kong and Korea, Florida and London, Sydney and New York.

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Mafu was once invited to go to the central Australian desert to spend some time camping with a famous group of Aboriginal women known as the Tjanpi Weavers. Aboriginal people call this ‘going out on country’ and it is a privilege to be invited to be a part of one of these trips.

Out in the desert, the Tjanpi Weaver ladies showed Mafu the desert eucalyptus trees that are not very tall but have large seedpods filled with millions of teeny-tiny seeds. Mafu stared to think about how the seed pod is like a special house the mother tree grows to protect the tiny seeds of the next generation of trees.

Mafu asked the Tjanpi Weavers if she could collect some seedpods to use in her art projects. They said “Yes, thats a great idea!”.

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After that inspiration in the desert, Mafu started working with the seedpods of many other kinds of eucalyptus species - there are about 800 different ones!

She worked with scientists, and asked florist suppliers and people who grow eucalyptus trees for reforestation, urban planting and home gardens if she could collect or buy the seedpods of their trees.

Then she worked out ways to process the seedpods using many different types of tools so she could finally build her dreamed-of sculptures and installations made from thousands and thousands of different gum nut shapes.

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Mafu worked with her assistants over many months to invent ways to make spherical sculptures and the large wall installations she imagined.

They cleaned the millions of tiny seeds out of the thousands of gumnuts from different species of Eucalyptus trees from all over Australia. Then the gumnuts were frozen to get rid of any tiny insects that might eat the gumnuts from the inside.

Then they experimented a lot to work out the best ways to construct her gum nut sculptures so they could be shown in a prestigious modern art gallery in Sydney.

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One day, Mafu received an interesting and exciting invitation to visit the Japanese town of Suzu on the Noto Peninsula. The organisers of the Oku-Noto Triennale wanted her to come and think about making a new work for their exhibition in 2023.

Mafu and her husband Ross flew from Sydney to Tokyo, then to Suzu to spend ten days investigating the area. They were enchanted by the location and the natural surrounds. Mafu was taken to a beach where she immediately wondered ‘What are these odd-shaped woody black seedpods lying about in the sand?’ She had never seen them before, so they sparked her imagination.

She also noticed many pine cones lying under pine trees and the interesting shapes of old camellia seedpods lying under bushes. She knew she wanted to work with these local plant materials to make her installation artwork for Suzu.

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After Mafu had returned to Australia and worked out her project, many generous local people of Suzu agreed to help her by collecting the thousands of seedpods needed to realise her artworks.

Mafu felt very grateful and happy that Suzu people were interested enough in her idea to help out by giving their time and using their local knowledge.

Pretty soon there were large bags of seedpods collected, ready to be processed for the exhibition.

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A few weeks before the Oku-Noto Triennale officially opened, Mafu and Ross flew back to Suzu to work with local volunteers to create the final installation in the old Suzu Nursery School building.

Mafu’s art project for the Triennale is titled SEEDPOD TIMECAPSULE.

Seedpods are special forms that plants produce, in fascinating different shapes and sizes, to house and protect their seeds until they’re ready to go out into the world to sprout and grow. Seeds are the plants’ children.

The Nursery School is like a seedpod, a protective place where young minds and bodies are cared for and helped to develop. It is also a time capsule of memories for all the kids who have played and learned here and for all the adults who have worked here with them.

Mafu hopes her art project made with help from Suzu locals will inspire visitors to think about the cycles of the natural world, about things that might be overlooked, about the importance of imagination and storytelling, and about encouraging children to appreciate the wonders of the natural world.