The Gift
Steel and Plants
2025
The Gift was installed in 2022 as a temporary work to celebrate circular economies of generosity, sharing, fixing things, and mutual benefit. This work aimed to be both a mascot and an infrastructure to support the expansion of these practices already happening in Katoomba. Over this time many people contributed to The Gift. It found particular use amongst gardeners as a plant and seed exchange box.
In 2025 to extend the life of the work we removed the cladding to reveal the steel scaffold which mimics the buttresses of the adjacent architecture of the church. Stripped to its essence, The Gift now provides a support structure to support plant life and encourage locals to guerilla-garden & enhance the beauty of this ‘living lane’.
Heidi Axelsen and Hugo Moline work across the forms of architecture, installation, social process and durational public art. They make site-specific devices, discursive machines and social infrastructures.
