Abbie Cossey

I work with what is immediately available to me, allowing materials at hand to guide both process and outcome. My approach reduces photographic chemistry to its simplest form, favouring adaptation, observation, and restraint over precision or excess.

The making is slow and considered. It requires attention to subtle shifts, timing, and the behaviour of materials that are not always predictable. This slowness is important to me; it creates space to think through the work rather than rush towards an image.

In this body of work, kānuka is both subject and collaborator. The same plant that appears in the photographs is also used to produce the photographic developer, creating a direct relationship between process and image.

Kānuka is a constant presence in my environment and thinking. It holds many roles—medicinal, ecological, and structural—supporting bees, stabilising soil, and contributing to regeneration and shelter. I am interested in how a single species can carry multiple interconnected functions, and what that reveals about resilience, care, and sustainability.

Through this work I question the pace and excess of contemporary photographic production. I am drawn to processes that are reduced, responsive, and materially aware, where photography becomes less about control and more about listening to what the materials are already doing.


@abbiecossey