This diptych is from A lost place, a series of manipulated and recontextualised images conveying my personal feelings of frustration and horror at the devastating 2019–20 wildfires in New South Wales. As these fires grow in frequency and severity due to escalating global temperatures, this project questions how colonialism and climate change may be linked.
I have painted ink directly onto the surface of the chromogenic landscape print to the right of the gelatin silver print, both of which constitute the baryta ink-jet print, to represent the violent power of fire on a global scale and my fear and anger at such destruction.
A Lost place combines landscape images with photographs of preserved animal specimens housed in museum archives. Some, such as this bat, are native to Australia; others were introduced only to become rampant pests. In this way I link wildfires and other disastrous effects of our manmade climate crisis to Australia’s colonialist history, with its scientific-rationalist passion for collecting, exhibiting, and dominating the natural world.