fictional hybrids

In the summer of 2009 Australian artist Vera Möller spent time in the King’s Wood at Challock, not far from here, as part of an exchange program between Stour Valley Arts and Heide Museum in Melbourne. On Thursday evening the fruits of this period of research were revealed when Möller’s show opened at the Sidney Cooper Gallery in Canterbury. She was trained as a biologist and microbiologist in Germany subsequently studying art in Melbourne. The ‘hybrids’ are tiny models of imaginary fungi which were placed in the natural environment of the King’s Wood and photographed with a macro lens. The large hall at the rear of the gallery shows these large photographic images while a small glass case houses the surprisingly small models. In the hallway and the front room are works on paper which conjure up additional imagined images of mycological specimens and cellular forms. Stour Valley Arts have put together many fine artists books and Vera Möller’s is no exception. It’s a beautiful production concentrating on the photographed hybrids and including critical texts by Justin Clemens (Melbourne), Peter Vujakovic (Canterbury), a witty imagined taxonomy by Ian Bride (Whitstable) and poem/journal extracts from me (Faversham).