Cactus Journal

aceae refers to the plant family of spiny succulents more commonly known as Cacti. Cactaceae can survive in a host of inhospitable conditions, thriving in areas of intense heat, drought, and sparseness, such as deserts or high mountain regions. Cactaceae are well known for their occasional psychotropic qualities and, accordingly, have been used widely in shamanic rituals and as a means of distorting perception, with the Echinopsis Pachanoi, or “San-Pedro Cactus,” which contains the alkaloid mescaline, being a notable example. Given that Perth can at times seem greatly inhospitable to the arts, those artists whom thrive here are perhaps not unlike Cactaceae or Cacti. Emerging out of the most unlikely of places, thriving in immense isolations and without a great deal of nourishment or enrichment, the artists and practices associated with this hot and arid region are indeed idiosyncratic, weird, and are, perhaps, similarly rich in their ability to produce psychotropic materials…

In Australia and New Zealand “cactus” is a used as a slang term for anything that is unserviceable or broken-down, or generally not in working order. Indeed, for many the art-scene in Perth is “cactus” and the artists whom work here are often viewed as spiny and guarded. Against this view, some feel that the artists and networks that emerge out of Perth should be viewed as miraculous and unique, vibrant, and strange, and, furthermore, should be embraced for their diversity - for their weirdness. The word “weird,” from the old-English wyrd, meaning “destiny,” found its original adjectival form in reference to that which is in control of its destiny - a capacity that is perhaps most evident for those whom are too isolated to be circumscribed within over-arching forms of cultural control.