DEPLOYMENT
100 seconds to midnight
2hrs South of Sydney
Field Scout: Sammy Hawker
Equipment: 35mm film [Ilford HP5 Plus] hand-processed with spring water collected from site.
Shot on a Canon EOS 1V w a Canon EF 24-70mm 2.8 II USM.
Cabin: Das
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
The other day I watched a video where visual artist Julian Meagher describes how pre-lockdown humans were operating on a post-human level.
We live in a world that hangs on a ledge, 100 seconds from midnight. Cross-species confluences is a requirement for a healthy ecosystem but instead the infrastructure of our societies has rewarded the conceit of the individual and the monocultures of modern progress. Chaos ensues - a warming climate, mass extinction, dysfunctional landscapes, out of control viruses … our post-human actions leading towards a lonely post-earth home.
This year, to varying degrees, we’ve been forced to slow down. And when you slow down the quieter voices, the voices that hover underneath the roar of the rush, are more easily heard.
My first morning at Das the sun ricochets off the corner of the escarpment flooding my room in an impossible light.
I sit up and feel the way my body carves out a space within the resting sunlight.
Close down your eyes and listen for the furthest sound.
As if a magic carpet has swooped me up I fly through the tall creaking pines and over the edge of the cliff, where the updrafts pick me up and I soar towards the briny ocean horizon.
The eucalyptus sway like coral in the wind.
In my photographic practice I explore methods of more-than human collaboration. I am interested in breaking open the permanency of the photograph by inviting agents of the site to interact with the work. Lately I've been using water from site when processing film. I fill a glass jar to take home with me. While I fill the jar I see a lyrebird outside the window. He walks past the same time every day dragging his eloquent tail along the ground.
The water from the cabin is pure and clean and gravity fed from a spring far down on the western side of the escarpment. Chris located the spring while searching in the crumbling bush.
There is a pulsating energy of a huge life force sunk deep in the forest.
It is steep and we slide rather than walk. Chris follows his phone where he has left a mark on a topographical map but we begin to sense the tree long before we see it. It is a ficus macrophylla an ancient Moreton Bay fig. Next to it we are tiny - both in stature and life-span. The colossal buttress roots tower over us like boulders, the strangler roots winding like thick misshapen veins up towards the atmosphere. Chris tells me to put my ear to the trunk and I swear that here, deep in the quiet of the thick forest, I can hear running water as the xylem transports water from the soil to the sky.
These images were created on the land of the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal clan. I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay my respect to all Elders past, present and emerging. I extend this respect to all First Nations people and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.
The end.
Photos and words by Sammy Hawker @sammyhawker