Distinctive, complex and beautiful, the 'Hear the Plant Song' tapestry, designed by Janet Laurence, was hand-woven over 1300 hours by ATW weavers Chris Cochius, Amy Cornall, Cheryl Thornton and Sue Batten.

The fragility of the natural environment drives Laurence's international art practice. Across photography, sculpture, video and installation, she explores the deep interconnection of life forms and ecologies. 'Hear the Plant Song' is the second collaboration between Laurence and the ATW and allowed the artist to build on her knowledge of the way the ATW weavers can transform a digital image into a tapestry.

'Hear the Plant Song' invites the viewer to submerge themselves in a subaqueous like undergrowth. Laurence's tapestry design is a composite digital image that draws on her extensive image archive, layered with scans of paint dragged on glass resulting in an ethereal, transparent effect.

ATW weavers captured the reflective qualities of Laurence's tapestry design; transparent glass areas, lines of light as well as soft painterly and watery effects by using very subtle colour mixing techniques and concise range of green and blue tones. ATW master dyer Tony Stefanovski dyed three new wool tones and one new cotton tone in the ATW's on-site colour laboratory for this tapestry to achieve the specific greens.

'Hear the Plant Song' was cut from the loom on the 24 June 2020, by Andrew and Cathy Cameron, who commissioned the tapestry for their private collection of Australian contemporary art. Reflecting on the commissioning process, Mr Cameron noted 'the trust placed in the weavers by Janet, to not copy, but transform her design into tapestry was a process that has been so interesting to observe. We are thrilled with the result, and we look forward to living with and contemplating 'Hear the Plant Song' for many years to come'.