From Little Things was a stepping stone to Matthew Harding’s Fire Seeds, a sculptural series made in response to the 2003 Canberra bushfires in Australia. Made from Australian red cedar wood in the shape of a seed, the sculpture alludes to the humble origins of that tree, which can reach a height of nearly 200 feet. The wood was almost harvested to extinction in the 19th century, a fact that becomes more poignant when considering the destruction of bushfires today and the effects of the climate crisis. Harding’s sculpture evokes both the astonishing, timeless beauty of nature and its incredible fragility.

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