Compressions: a public artwork by Francis Carmody
Hidden amongst the dense foliage of the Test Garden, you’ll find a new sculptural installation by artist-in-residence Francis Carmody – a series of works that explore the physical imprint of time on matter, reflecting on research into plants and material form.
Compressions is a new public artwork at Fed Square, and the first public outcome of the Test Garden artist-in-residence program, commissioned by MAP Co with the University of Melbourne.
The work comprises a series of small-scale relief sculptures installed within the Test Garden, which connect ongoing garden experiments and scientific research underway at the University of Melbourne’s Burnley Campus with the garden.
Developed in dialogue with Dr Dean Schrieke’s research from the Plant Trials at Burnley, the works translate his findings and the diversity of the garden’s species into sculptural form.
Each relief is cast and carved from onsite materials including beeswax, ceramic and experimental substrates. These processes collapse geological, botanical and sculptural time scales, folding the logic of growth, pressure and decay into a single surface.
The project mirrors the shared ethos of the artist’s studio and the scientific method, where questioning, experimentation, observation and iteration form parallel ways of understanding the world around us. By bridging these two modes of inquiry, Compressions proposes the Test Garden as both a site and a method for a living experiment in how matter records time.
Saturday 6 December, 10am | Test Garden
At our next Test Garden Open Day, hear from artist Francis Carmody in conversation with Dr Dean Schrieke. The two will explore their shared research practices at Burnley and the development of the artwork, Compressions, alongside the Plant Trials.
About the artist
About the Plant Trials
About the Test Garden artist-in-residence program
Header image: Studio study, 2025, courtesy Francis Carmody
Technical support and thanks to Nigel Brockbank and Jack Halls, Robotics Lab and Fab Lab, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne.