Canadian artist Randy Lee Cutler and Australian artist Andrew Rewald worked together for 18 months from opposite sides of the world to create a collaborative installation for NIRIN at the National Art School in Sydney. Randy lives in Vancouver while Andrew is based on the NSW north coast in Mullumbimby.

Spread through three rooms in the school’s historic Chapel, their joint work Mineral Garden delves into the secret life of plants and minerals, core areas of interest for both artists.

They also each have separate works as part of NIRIN, the 22^nd Biennale of Sydney. Andrew built Alchemy Garden from scratch last year onsite at NAS, a community garden with edible plants which has flourished while being tended to by a team of local residents.

Randy’s project, Mineral Collection, includes her collage works exploring the presence of minerals in our daily environments.

Randy and Andrew were both scheduled to present public talks and tours as part of NIRIN, but these were cancelled due to coronavirus.

Due to regulations for the National Art School as a tertiary institution, the campus remains closed to the general public. Randy and Andrew’s installation, and other Biennale artworks commissioned for NIRIN and first exhibited at NAS in March, have been transferred to Carriageworks at Eveleigh, where they can be seen from 7 August to 26 September, 2020.

In this interview they talk about the profound professional and personal connections they made during their collaboration, the frustrations of remote curation, and their surprise when they first met in person late last year.