liberty lawson
interdisciplinary artist, writer & environmental storyteller
indonesia / australia
libertylawson.studio@gmail.com
over the last 15 years, my career has been shaped by environmental storytelling - shifting from academic research, education and science communication, to creative writing, photography and environmentally-engaged artistic practice.
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education
master of science / marine biology - james cook university, 2023
doctor of philosophy candidate - sydney environment institute, 2019-2022
graduate diploma / publishing & creative writing - the university of sydney, 2017
bachelor of science / first class honours - the university of sydney, 2015
portfolio
Symbiologue, 2022
Heron Island
“Corals are alchemists that turn sunlight into stone, turn empty seas into cathedrals of life. All at once, corals are plants, they are rocks, they are animals, flowers, archives, islands
Individually, anthozoans are almost too small to see and yet, en masse, over millennia, they build structures that are visible from space. reefs, atolls, worlds.”
— Liberty Lawson, Waterbirth (2020)
Labyrinth ii, 2021
Goolboddi/Orpheus Island
Since 2018, I have been working with community groups on a small island in Indonesia and internationally to design and build sculptural coral reef structures called Biorocks. Like succulents or frangipanis, corals can grow from small propagated fragments. Welded from steel, these scaffolds act as a nursery for coral fragments collected from areas affected by storm damage or boat anchoring, The biorock uses electrophoresis to assist coral growth and help protect the growing corals from heat stress. With the ocean conditions that climate change has precipitated, growing corals and restoring reefs successfully requires more than just patience and policy.
Read more about this process in an article I wrote for Wunderground
Dome biorock 27
2018
Steel, titanium, DC fuse box
6.2m x 4.5m
Halik Reef, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
“what might it mean to think, design, and collaborate like corals? how can we carry their lessons of non-euclidian thinking, collaborative support and hyperbolic growth into our own future as a species?”
I carried this provocation into my research as a Doctoral Fellow between 2019-2021 at the the Sydney Environment Institute, the world leader in multi-disciplinary environmental collaboration.
Leaving academia in 2022, I returned to Indonesia, where I have continued exploring this question through sculptural practice and environmentally-engaged art as a restoration consultant and designer.
untitled
2025
ink on paper, 10 x 15 cm
Transitioning my creative outputs into an environmentally-engaged sculptural practice has felt like a natural and inevitable evolution, combining my background in restoration design research, with my affinity for embodied and ecological material processes.
In 2024, I founded a small silversmithing studio designing jewellery, objects and small sculptural pieces from sterling silver.
I am currently working with silver, glass, sandstone and ink for my first solo show, a recurring dream knee deep at the water’s edge, to be held at NeoEcho Gallery in late 2025.
Halimeda ii, sterling silver, 2024
Halimeda i, ii, iii, sterling silver, 2024
Porites, sterling silver, 2025
Halocline, Australian Boulder Opal and sterling silver, 2024
Halocline ii — sterling silver, 2024
Zooanthid ii — padparadscha sapphire, sterling silver, 2024
Anthozoa I — sterling silver, 2024
Halimeda i, ii, iii — sterling silver, 2024
Liberty Lawson
Indonesia / Australia
libertylawson.studio@gmail.com