While Smith was in residence at the Jinhui Ceramic Sanitary Ware Factory, Sichuan province, China, she made Flooded Rose Red Basin. The casts of bamboo and gum highlight tensions between local and introduced species, and the ecological challenges that both China and Australia face with the intensive industrialisation of the countryside and the current climate emergency. Creating subtly textured sculptural forms, Smith asks the viewer to look past the cliched imagery associated with these iconic national symbols to the plants’ physical, material and chemical properties.