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A remarkable Trans-Pacific art collaboration came full circle this month with the launch of the Tim Maley Butterfly Garden on UWA's artspace in the virtual world of Second Life.

Tim is a studio artist for the Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts WA (DADAA) stARTSPEAK Project , and this collaboration was one of the results of the vision of Professor Ted Snell in bringing together Simone Flavelle of DADAA and UWA's Second Life co-ordinator, Jay Jay Jegathesan.

They worked together to bring about The Freedom Project which called for artists and filmmakers from around the globe who self-identified as having a disability or chronic illness, to create an artwork or a film or in fact a personal story on the theme of ‘Freedom', showing how virtual worlds have in some way helped them or those around them. From that successful partnership, this new one grew.

Tim's beautiful drawings lent themselves especially well for 'reimagining' in the virtual world. Kentucky-based UWA Curator of Virtual Arts, F. W. Ling used Tim's drawings as templates, bringing hundreds of them to life on a floating garden in Second Life.

"I was asked to create a butterfly garden using some crayon drawings Tim made," she said. "The drawings seem childlike at first glance, but I grew to appreciate Tim's sense of colour and design. Each drawing is unique and interesting in its own way. As I invariably discover when I have time to really look at art and to live with it for a  while, my appreciation for its subtleties deepens. This certainly happened with Tim's pictures."

Anyone in the world can now visit the Tim Maley Butterfly Garden in Second life, by clicking T HIS LINK . The link provided is a direct teleport link to the location of the garden, and anyone who already has a Second Life account will be able to teleport there direct. Anyone who does not yet have an account will be directed toward the account creation pages for Second Life , where in a  few simple steps, you can obtain an 'avatar' and log in.

Simone explained that she saw potential for projects and collaborations such as this and discussed potential applications with several colleagues in the disability sector, indicating that they would explore the possibility of using Second Life to assist people with acquired brain injury to provide an avenue for the sharing of their creative talent.

Jay Jay explained: "What has been the most remarkable thing, as far as art in the virtual world goes, is the ability of this medium to bring the artwork of an artist in some far flung corner of this earth to a global audience.

"I have been lucky to be able to interact and work with artists from all over the world including the Baleares Islands in Spain, Martinique in the French Caribbean, Serbia, the mountains of Wales, and many more. I have learnt from them that their art which once had an audience of the total number of people in their villages or towns has now grown to one which spans the earth."

Images of the garden and the process of creation can be seen on F.W. Ling's Picasa Web Album .