In Place / In Practice: Artist Charlotte Haywood on our responsibility to our planet and each other

2/9/2026

How do we care for our planet? Or each other? These are two big questions that, amidst a climate crisis and loneliness epidemic, feel inescapable. For regional NSW artist, Charlotte Haywood, interconnectedness between ecology and collective human experience seems to point us to the answers.

She explores these topics through a practice centred around collaboration, participation, microbiology and the way our bodies are connected to the earth. By doing so, she prompts the audience to consider how they are connected to the place we live and each other in a “…chorus of glimmering microbial phosphorescent goop.” (Charlotte Haywood, 2026)

Charlotte is an independent interdisciplinary artist based on Bundjalung Country in Wilsons Creek, NSW. Her practice is research-led and process-driven, working across contemporary art, textiles, installation, theatre, film, sound, food, material experimentation and participatory practice.

Her diverse practice comes from her background working in different mediums, and value system which seeks to break down barriers between different disciplines and hierarchies of knowledge.

Describing her background, she said, “I started in film and costume, so I am very interested in the human language of decoration and costume. And then I moved into weaving, studying in India and at South West TAFE in Warrnambool. That was my real introduction to craft. I was always fascinated by craft practitioners and people that had that within their daily lives as a cultural practise. Then I moved into community engaged practise, working at the intersection of art, craft and science. So that interdisciplinary flavour has always been there with me.”

Charlotte Haywood, Winner of the 2026 Windmill Trust Scholarship, ‘Future Nostalgia’, 2023. Photo by Louis Lim.

“Art should be for people and place, made by people and place. And that inherently has that idea of stewardship and care, for the environment and others biologically, but also in a greater spiritual sense.”

Stewardship of our planet is a distinct theme in her work. One example of this is her 2023 project, Future Nostalgia, where she worked with sonic artists, dancers and an evolutionary biologist to explore “…emergent narratives of the future through our collective relationships to song, dance, craft, food, ecologies, ourselves and each other.”

The project is a multisensory assemblage of nature and culture, combining knowledge systems and the senses to help us reconnect with each other and the planet (and ultimately, hopefully, leading us to respect and care for them better).  

“IMPLICIT ECOLOCY is phenomena. ‘Nature’ self-assembling. Co-creating. Co-decaying. To become again. Together again.”  

Materiality feeds into this too. Charlotte uses materials in a circular way, embracing their history and replacing them into the environment when she’s finished.  

“I always look for materials that have history, that come from people or place or plant. I love that idea that I can work with a material and then throw it out my window and it goes back into that place where I am. I find that repository of story that is embedded in materials interesting.”  

These reused materials also help to engage her audience’s senses in a unique way, like in her 2021 project, Viriditas, where she has translated ocean acidification levels of the past, present and predicted future into edible crystals. By doing so, audiences can experience the effects of climate change through their sense of taste, allowing for an understanding that data alone cannot provide.  

“You can read data and think, ‘Oh yeah, it’s looking bad’. But when you actually taste how extreme or exponential that growth of ocean acidification is it’s unpalatable.”  

Charlotte Haywood, Winner of the 2026 Windmill Trust Scholarship, Future Nostalgia, 2023. Photo by Louis Lim.

A few weeks ago, Regional Arts NSW (RANSW) and The Windmill Trust announced that the 2026 Windmill Trust Scholarship for regional NSW artists has been awarded to Charlotte for her upcoming project, WAVING IN UNISON.

WAVING IN UNISON is a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project investigating the “theatre” of microbiology and the earthly systems it sustains.

She describes the project as, “…a modular, playable sculpture that is musical, exploratory and participatory. A site of gathering, performance and learning, honouring microbial life as the hidden architects of planetary balance. Animated by both artists, musicians and audiences in collaboration with microbiologists and communities. Part ecological aggregation, part choose your own adventure, part participatory flash mob/chorus of glimmering microbial phosphorescent goop.”

When asked how this project started, she said:

“I suppose that seed was planted when I did the project Future Nostalgia, 2022. And I really kept resonating with this idea, ‘I’m not a noun, I’m an ecology’. I’m not even human; I’m made up of all these communities. And so, expanding on that I started to collaborate with the Australian Microbiome Project that maps different microbial communities within oceans predominantly and soils. And it brought me to understanding further that these microbial communities are sustaining a lot of earth systems from basically oxygen generation, carbon, nitrogen cycles, to even cloud formation and therefore climatic impacts. I started working with them and investigating that research and then realising that in microbes, they are trading their genes or their DNA like memes; adapting and evolving within generations. It’s a very responsive and amorphous community of life. And some of them are flagellated, which means they have long tails and they wave in unison. And I just thought this was so poetic of what we could have at this point in time. How do we work in this connected way?”

Alongside the Australian Microbiome Project, she will also collaborate with composer, sonic artist and multi-instrumentalist Sue Simpson, installation artist Edward Horn and visual storyteller, cinematographer, and ex-circus artist Hamish McCormick.  

The Windmill Trust Scholarship will support two key stages of development for WAVING IN UNISON. In January 2027, Haywood and her collaborators will attend the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Leighton Studios Residency in Canada, where they will conduct interdisciplinary research, creative exchange, ecological field investigation in the tundra and artistic experimentation.  

“There was something calling me to Banff because of the bioregion that we just don’t have in Australia. It’s also deeply grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems and respect for those nature-based cultures, the environment and interdisciplinary practise. It had all the things that I’m passionate about.” 

This will be followed by another residency in regional NSW, which will consist of collaborative studio development, biomaterial and material prototyping, multisensory experimentation and the documentation and translation of the Banff residency research into the next phase of WAVING IN UNISON. 

“Where I live is a very unique environment and ecology, so these two places will be in conversation with each other. And as a regional artist, being able to go to Banff and work on that international, interdisciplinary platform and bring it back here, I’m hoping, will help bring energy, excitement and shared knowledge back.” 

These residencies will culminate in free community workshops where participants will co-create sculptural forms, soundscapes, costumes and installation elements. The final installation artwork will be presented in late 2027 at the Brunswick Picture House, Brunswick Heads, NSW.

“It definitely comes back to that idea of democratic art – art made by the people, for the people. Sharing knowledge, sharing skills and invigorating a sense of place and purpose. It creates those membranes or intersections or relationships to share. I want people to be seen and valued for their unique voice and bring that sense of agency and value to each individual.”

Established by Primrose Moss in 1997 in memory of the artist Penny Meagher, the Windmill Trust Scholarship was born out of a desire to offer support to Australian visual artists living outside NSW metropolitan areas to advance their careers. It will greatly assist Charlotte at this critical point in her career, allowing her to make the most of this international residency opportunity.

On receiving the scholarship she said, “The timing is incredible. It will reinvigorate my practice, as well as the network of artists and communities that I work with…it will help me give back in service to this place and community. My practice is at a stage where my projects are becoming more experimental and expansive, involving more artists, collaborators and communities. By having the trust of the Windmill Trust Scholarship and Regional Arts NSW it gives me the capacity to take projects further, making work that is more multifaceted, while continuing to grow as an independent regional artist.”

As a regional artist, Charlotte brings a unique connection to place to her practice, which directly informs the creative philosophy described above. On Koonyum Range, Wilson’s Creek, she says, “I live in a big, wet sclerophyll forest made of huge gums and tree ferns. They are like my aunties and uncles and are these huge forces that I walk past every day and surround me. They have greatly shaped my practise and the way that I exist within the world because I have a responsibility to them. And the community of artists here have a real authenticity that comes from not having access to galleries. The community is spread out and so to maintain that practise you have grit between your toes.”

The interconnectedness between the planet, ourselves and other people speaks directly into two of the most prominent crises of our time – the state of the climate and the ever-increasing loneliness brought on by a divided and technology-centred world.

Charlotte’s exploration of ecology and collective human experience shows us how we all, including the microscopic lifeforms we are made up of, truly rely on each other. And by extension, we can glimpse an alternative to the environmental and relational exploitation that is currently the norm in Australian life. She provides us with a model of stewardship and collaboration that points us to another possibility, where we ‘wave in unison’, working with each other for the benefit of our community and planet.

Learn more about Charlotte Haywood: www.charlottehaywood.com.au

Learn more about the Windmill Trust Scholarship: www.windmilltrust.org.au

Written by Beatrice Waller, Operations & Engagement Manager at RANSW

Cover image: Charlotte Haywood, Winner of the 2026 Windmill Trust Scholarship. Photo by Anna Kucera.