Artist Statement

During the 2019/2020 bushfires there was a bombardment of disparate commentary. Be it leaders not consulting each other, the blame game towards either the lack of action on climate change or the lack of backburning, and it was all compounded by the constant updates from the media and social media. The information felt dirtied by the hype so that the vision of facts had become a distorted blur on a pair of glasses that I could not quite remove. 

This obscurity is shown across the five photos through the delicate, hazy aesthetic of the polaroids, and it seeks to show the fear, confusion and loss experienced during that time. 

I also consciously chose to use the medium of the polaroid to illustrate a contrast when other technology, such as digital, can be used to show the same view with crisp clarity. It is to invite the viewer to reflect on the government’s choice to use older polluting technologies instead of having the 20-20 vision to use renewable technologies, and its wider implications on many levels of society. 

The pictures were taken between January 2020 and June 2020 across the Belconnen region, ACT and Nerriga, NSW, and they move across several stages from the Days of Smoke through to Renewal.