Sammy Hawker is an Australian based visual artist working predominantly on Ngunawal, Ngunnawal, Ngambri country [Canberra, ACT]. Sammy works primarily between the mediums of documentary video and traditional analogue photography and her work is created from an interest in the immaterial and material presences within a site.

In her practice Sammy examines forms of co-creation as a method of celebrating the voices of the worlds around us. She is particularly intrigued by the tactility of analogue film and the possibilities this presents in facilitating more-than human mark making on the final image. Sammy has co-created work with oceans, rivers, honey-bees, seaweed and Eucalyptus trees. The unpredictable input of these collaborators disrupts her authorial control and encourages a new ecology based on a postcolonial equality between the human and more-than human.

As a Project Alchemy artist Sammy invited communities of Canberra, Braidwood and the South Coast to deliver her a few leaves and a story of a tree that was special of them. The variety & vibrancy of these tree chromatograms was extraordinary. The stories that were shared reflect on how meaningful trees are in our lives - quiet witnesses to our experiences of birth, death, relationship breakdowns, spiritual breakthroughs and the general passing of life.