Diana Baker Smith
A Colonial Habit of Growth
2026
Two-channel Super 8 film transferred to digital video
9:35 minutes

A Colonial Habit of Growth traces the movement of gorse (Ulex europaeus) from Ireland to Australia through histories of colonisation and empire. It begins in the countryside around Cork, where gorse has long formed part of rural life, harvested for hedging, animal fodder, fuel and medicine, and embedded in Irish song, folklore and seasonal customs. It then turns to New South Wales, where gorse was cultivated from the early years of the colony, including by the Irish convict Henry Browne Hayes, who planted it for hedging at what is now known as Vaucluse House.

Following the plant’s spread across Australia, the work considers how plants and agricultural practices travelled with European settlement, becoming part of the transformation and division of land through cultivation, hedging and enclosure. Once valued by settlers, gorse spread beyond cultivation and came to be classified as an invasive weed, subjected to increasingly intensive regimes of control.

Filmed between Ireland and Australia, the work combines Super 8 footage of gorse in contemporary landscapes with scenes of Vaucluse House and its gardens. These images are paired with texts drawn from Irish-language song, folklore, botanical records, colonial archives and contemporary weed manuals, tracing shifting relationships between land, cultivation and control, and drawing attention to the ongoing labour of maintaining a colonised landscape.

Work Credits
Sound composition: Philip Samartzis
Irish translation: Faye Ní Raghallaigh
Colourist: Justin Tran
Gardeners: Alice Cook, Gerard Bell, Anita Rayner, Stephen Goldsworthy and Julien Melice.

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A Colonial Habit of Growth was developed through the Vaucluse House Creative and Cultural Residency Program with Museums of History NSW, and residencies at SIRIUS Arts Centre, Cobh. Research undertaken in Ireland was supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW and UNSW Art & Design.

Diana Baker Smith, A Colonial Habit of Growth, 2026. Two-channel Super 8 film transferred to digital video, 9:35 minutes. Installation view, Sydenham International. Photo: Katherine Lu.