Zanci Station: exploded diagram (2011)
2-Channel Installation | Silent | Fiona and Sydney Myer Gallery (formerly Margaret Lawrence Gallery)
By 2011, I had made a number of works in places that were in between different areas of land use, places where detritus accumulated but became invisible because no-one was directly responsible for it. I had made work about collections of rubbish on boundaries that were far flung: two reindeer herding co-operatives in the north of Finland; the sides of roads across inland Australia; between an old village and a new freeway in Shanghai; as well as culverts and drains between towns and rivers.
Zanci Station: exploded diagram took this work in a new direction by reading the archaeology of an old farm in a national park and finding evidence of indigenous species, introduced species, remnants of pre-colonial aboriginal culture, the remains of the station itself in the form of wood and metal artefacts, and evidence of its post-colonial status as a National Park.
Through its roving micro-perspective, the camera searched these remnants for the truth of the environment but ultimately distorted and aestheticized, providing no truth at all. In an attempt to re-particularize an environment, Zanci Station: exploded diagram provided us with both more information and less at the same time, and allegorised our fleeting and subjective engagement with place.