Data Visualisations
National Tree Day 2025
Records added to the Atlas of Living Australia over the last 50 years (1976-2025) are visualised here as tree growth rings. In the way that a cross-section of a tree provides a snapshot of past environmental conditions, these rings provide an overview of fluctuations in numbers of records added each year. Darker colours and thicker rings indicate relatively more records were added that year, although I’ve taken a degree of artistic license and made the circumference of each ring slightly irregular to give it a more organic look. I chose to focus on four iconic Australian tree species for this visualisation: Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans), Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla), Snow Gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora), and River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis).
World Parrot Day 2025
Each bird in the sky represents approximately 10,000 parrot records in the Atlas of Living Australia, and the hills in the foreground were formed by plotting frequency counts of records of three extinct parrot species over time. The colours of the birds in the sky represent the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) status of species. To plot the shape of the flock of parrots, I experimented with different constant values in the Clifford attractor equations. The shape I chose was deliberately straggly, like the shapes of the flocks of corellas I often see (and take delight in) where I live.
This piece was inspired by Andrea Garrec’s Murmurations.