Bundanon

The Dirt Witches Scrub Collective is a group of seven cross-disciplinary environmental and climate activists.

The Scrub Collective has the combined skills of curatorship, artistic practice, landscape architecture and academic research. Our recent Barlow Street Banksia Forest (City of Sydney Laneways project, now permanent) and 2024 Dirt Witch residency at Sydney’s Ethics Centre have informed our current focus on creating dynamic action at the nexus of art and activism. Our focus is fighting native forest logging, protecting biodiversity and campaigning for better climate awareness.

The Scrub Collective comprises Lara Merrett, Floria Tosca, Rena Shein, Caroline Rothwell, Jane Irwin, Vivienne Webb and Prue Gibson. As a counterpoint to the historical vilification of the ‘protesting woman’ as a witch, the Scrub Collective reclaim the name and role of the witch, as a mode of subversion and refusal.

In Residence at Bundanon

The Scrub Collective will draw on the sanctuary of Bundanon’s bush land and the sounds of the forest in order to strategise upcoming actions and to progress towards our 2025 projects. As an art-activist group, preparation will begin for bio-banners and textile materials for our future activist events. Bundanon has an abundance of eucalyptus trees and other vegetal and geo-matter that we will use to create materials for several upcoming events and actions that will be inclusive, ethical and ecologically impactful.