Ferals is an evolving body of sculptural work that explores the environmental and cultural consequences of migration through the introduction of rabbits to Australia by early European settlers.

Bursting from vessels that mimic nineteenth-century English blue-and-white ceramics are rabbits—one of Australia’s most destructive introduced species. The ceramic forms symbolise domesticity, settlement and the transplantation of British culture. Early settlers brought with them not only their household objects and traditions, but also the animals woven into everyday English life. Rabbits, introduced by Thomas Austin in 1859 to recreate the familiar pastime of rabbit hunting, became one of the country’s most devastating invasive species.

While the work begins with this ecological history, it extends beyond the rabbits themselves. Their introduction becomes a metaphor for the movement of culture: the customs, objects, rituals and beliefs that travel with people as they migrate. Like introduced species, cultures take root, adapt, hybridise and, at times, profoundly reshape the environments into which they arrive. Blue-and-white ceramics become vessels of cultural transmission, while the rabbits bursting from them suggest that culture cannot remain contained.

As a Polish migrant living in Australia, I recognise myself within this history. My own experience reflects the continual negotiation between inherited traditions and those absorbed through living elsewhere. Rather than assigning blame to the past, the work considers migration as an enduring and universal human condition—one that enriches, transforms and sometimes disrupts both landscapes and identities. Through this lens, Ferals reflects on the unintended consequences of human movement, reminding us that the exchange of culture, like the movement of species, leaves lasting traces on both people and place.

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