I made a terrible work at art school where I pulled hundreds of  thorns off roses that were living in Mona Vale, Ōtautahi. It wasn’t until after that I was told they don’t grow back. I often think about those roses that I stripped of an integral part of their disease-fighting mechanism.

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Within this exhibition, the parent tree of the sycamore is illusive, as it was to me throughout the making process. After noticing the seeds in my backyard, I searched for the tree, but never found it — the features have been collected, but the body is missing.

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The pods of the Acer pseudoplatanus, or sycamore, appear sperm-like, which is perhaps fitting, given that they are seeds.

The plant is monoecious, meaning it has both male and female reproductive organs.