All the places

Photographic Works (2019)

I picked up a spoon collection from a NSW country op shop a few years ago. It always felt odd that I had strangers complete set of memories neatly displayed on an Australia shaped piece of wood. I also felt tinges of sadness as I’m sure at some stage it held great sentimental value to someone, perhaps it is the reminder of inevitable mortality. I started to invent a narrative in my head, creating a portrait of a stranger, an act of paying homage to lost stories. I imagined her, an elderly lady who sits with her spoons, polishing them one by one, reliving each place, the good and the bad as if she is there again. It stuck with me. Putting together this work felt like piecing together small fragments of other people’s lives.

Whilst not a traditional portrait, I often find the lack of a physical presence allows a viewer to project their own narrative shaped by their life experiences. It can act as a reminder and a portrait to those in their own lives. 

When I first came to Australia no one drank Fosters and when my friends said they were going "out past Woop Woop" they didn't mean past a sawmill town in WA. My idea of Australia was built on imagined landscapes from popular culture and colloquialisms. Muriel never had a wedding in Porpoise Spit and the residents of Port Niranda Lighthouse were not going round the twist. This work is a homage to these fictional landscapes, each represented here by its own souvenir spoon. An object often collected as a memento of ones travels.