Interactive Installation - Solo Exhibition 2024

One of the features of Debbie Johnston's Solo Exhibition, May 2024, was an Interactive Installation, highlighting the losses and hopes of expatriates. Visitors to her exhibition were encouraged to select a machete print and write a key loss of theirs on the front in oil pastel. They then taped the machete to the glass surrounding the installation of palm tree saplings.

These saplings were significant in that they had been rescued from the canopy of trees that were felled in the neighborhood of her home in Lome, Togo. Visitors were also encouraged to take home a moringa sapling - the small saplings on the lower stairs - to plant and nurture as a symbol of Hope. The nurturing of plants and spending time in nature featured in her research of expatriates as being a key means to help cope with the losses experienced as part of the highly mobile expatriate lifestyle and nurture hope.