Linda Seiffert & Dr. Gregory Crocetti

Entanglements of Earth celebrates the complex symbiotic relationships between microbes and their bio-geo-chemical processes within the soils and sediments across earth. The exhibition features sculptures made of ceramics, glass, raw clay and natural materials, created collaboratively between visual artist Linda Seiffert and microbial ecologist Dr. Gregory Crocetti. 

The work seeks to challenge the lines drawn between nature and culture, living and nonliving, the sacred and mundane - inviting us to reconsider our place within the natural world and our relationship with the more-than-human.

Central to the space is a reimagining of the mythical Greek Hydra as a living sculpture of mud, clay and glass. Her many heads contain self-sustaining microbial ecosystems, emulating those developed by 19th century scientist Sergei Winogradsky*.

An ancient creature at home in the swamp, the Hydra reflects our unease with nature’s deeper cycles - decomposition, death, and the forces we cannot control. Her multiplicity evokes the intricate interconnectedness of ecosystems, where all life is entangled. Her ability to regenerate becomes a powerful ecological metaphor: a symbol of nature’s capacity for adaptation, resilience, and renewal through disturbance. The Hydra is not a threat to overcome but a guide to learn from, reminding us that what decays also nourishes, and what is monstrous may also sustain.

*A Winogradsky column is like a miniature world for microbes.
It’s a clear tube filled with mud, water, and a few extra nutrients. Left in the light, it becomes home to many different bacteria, each finding its own place depending on how much light, oxygen, and nutrients are available. Over weeks or months, colourful bands appear—each colour marking a different community of microbes with its own way of living.

Learn more about Winogradsky columns here:

https://archive.bio.ed.ac.uk/jdeacon/microbes/winograd.htm

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the people who helped us to bring this exhibition together, including: Pamela Black, Felix Jackson, Sky Carter, Hannah O’Reilly, Ella Seiffert, Adam Chisholm, Bruce Cameron, Les Cormack, Brent Lennox, Adrian Todd, James Devery, Cindi Drennan and Craig Laurendet (illuminart), Briony Barr, Aviva Reed, Ben Edols, Kathy Elliott and the Canberra Glassworks team (Hugo Curtis, KatieAnn Houghton, Nadina Geary, Rob Schwartz, Annette Blair), and the National Art School Ceramics department.

This project is supported by Blue Mountains City Council and Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust program.

AN ELEMENTAL INCANTATION

Entangled, in a living shrine
for the slow swamp.
Where mud remembers,
roots weave, and mycelia bind,
and light exhales in breaths of time.
 
In the watery margins 
where complexity thrives,
and stories are whispered by microbial mouths,
myths are made of rot and renewal,
and life seeps sideways.

We summon the Hydra from her liminal lair,
from depths where dreams hang thick in the air.
Mythical monster, of swamp and flame,
with venomous breath and heads that reclaim.
Chthonic drakōn of the marsh-bound rim,
who guards the threshold where shadows swim.
 
Skeleton of steel,
skin of clay,
glass heads rise in a monstrous display.
Ancestral being, reborn through mud,
mineral and microbe, alchemical blood.
 
Within her serpentine vessels of light,
bacteria bloom in fermenting delight.
They sing in soft, symphonic sway,
a colourful chorus of elements play.
Carbon fixation building a crust,
iron oxidising to rust,
oxygen flickers and withers away,
sulfur swirls in fragrant decay.
 
The Hydra sits at the underworld's rim,
beholding the stillness, and the swamp within.
She dwells in the belly of breakdown and birth,
tending the tangles that tether the Earth.
Here, spirit soaks into matter’s skin,
and worlds forgotten, begin again.

Linda Seiffert

Linda is a visual artist based in the Blue Mountains. She works with a variety of sculptural media, specialising in ceramics.

On receiving her Bachelor of Fine Art (Ceramics) from the National Art School (NAS) Sydney, Linda won the graduating student prize and has since seen many accolades for her work, including a 2024 Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust grant.

Exhibiting regularly in solo and group exhibitions, Linda also teaches ceramics at NAS and Nepean TAFE, and participates in Artist-In-Residence programs.

This project builds on her long-standing practice of inquiry into the mystery, diversity and dynamism of nature.

It draws on her extensive experience working with sculptural ceramics in an expanded field: experimenting with scale and repetition; exploring ephemeral processes and the mixing of media; and challenging conventional modes of presentation, both in and outside the gallery.