ABSTRACT:
The making of the modern world has long been fuelled by utopian images that are blind to ecological reality. Botanical gardens are but one example – who typically portray themselves as miniature, isolated 'edens on earth'.  Whilst respected, heritage-laden institutions such as the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney promote such an idealised image they are now self-evidently also the vital ‘lungs’ of a crowded citiy as well as a critical habitats for threatened biodiversity (in this case notably flying foxes). In 2010 the 'Remnant Emergency Artlab' set out to alleviate this utopian hangover through a creative provocation called the 'Botanical Gardens ‘X-Tension’ - an imagined city-wide, distributed, network of 'ecological gardens' - in order to ask, what now needs to be better understood, connected and therefore ultimately conserved?

FOR: Proposed for Forthcoming Issue: Fibreculture, Networked Utopias and Speculative Futures

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