Zena Holloway

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Earth materials 2023

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ROOT 

Zena Holloway is a photographer, maker and material innovator. She cultivates sustainable sculpture from grass root and in doing so takes an intuitive leap into the future to imagine a material world that is grown, not made.
Inspired by the sprawling, delicate shape of coral and other marine life, Holloway creates soft, textured lamps, wall-hangings and mobiles from wheatgrass seed. The plant sprouts over the course of about two weeks in beeswax moulds. As it grows, it produces its intricately woven root structure, which she guides into specific spaces and patterns to form large, sheet-like textiles. Entirely compostable, the material is ‘both reality and metaphor, aiming to expose the beauty and vulnerability of coral and to champion ocean conservation.’