This project presents a narrative captured through six photographs depicting a feud between neighbours competing in a cactus-growing competition. The story, named Cactus Catastrophe, revolves around two elderly neighbours who become embroiled in rivalry after entering a gardening contest to grow the largest cactus. As they observe the rapid growth of each other's cacti, envy motivates them to sabotage one another's plants in the lead-up to the competition. However, their actions backfire when both awaken to find their cacti mysteriously dead. They come to the realization that their antics have led to their own downfall, resulting in defeat for both at the competition.
For this narrative storyboard, the first frame depicts the elderly neighbours' houses with the large, impressive cacti in their front yards. The second and third frames illustrate each neighbour's perspective, showing them tending to their own cacti in preparation for the competition while the other neighbour observes. In the fourth and fifth frames, both men are shown poisoning each other's cacti. The final frame revisits the initial scene, now depicting
both cacti as dead, with the neighbours blaming each other for actions they also committed themselves.
For this project, the main characters were two elderly puppet men, each representing a neighbour. I created illustrations of houses, dividing them into separate parts to ensure they were true to scale for the puppets. After printing these houses, I assembled them into their final shape. To maintain narrative scale, I used trimmed lavender as the background in the images to conceal any life-size objects. I set up these houses with the background lavender bush trimmings in my backyard and then proceeded to take photos.
