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About Cementa
During my residency for Cementa22 I visited Newnes ruins, Ben Bullen train station and Lithgow no. 1 dam. I photographed them at night to enable me to create a painting of the dam and of one of the coke kilns at Newnes. I also made a video of these sites with a ghostly, slow ambience. My interest in these places is their connection to early industry and habitation of the area on the other side of The Great Dividing Range from Sydney and its suburbs. The title ‘The Great Divide’ reflects the divide of history and how this affects our perception of these places now. It also references the physical barrier of the range as one that not only marks a change in the landscape, but delineates a shift in perspective with regard to land use, resources and community. This historical connection between industry, infrastructure and habitation, remains written on the landscape of regional areas, bearing witness to the rise and fall of generations of communities and industries. These representations of industrial remnants, portrayed as liminal spaces, remind us that our present and future are haunted by the industries of the past and that narratives of past land use are present in any reading of the landscape.