Today I was taken on a tour of the central Victoria mining fields in the Daylesford area by architect and heritage advisor, Mandy Jean. I was captivated by this area after Mandy sent me an email many months ago describing this area in vivid detail …. ‘ Nearby are the deep leads of the Read more
The geology here is remarkable and very different. Even though some of the colours in the mining landscape are familiar to me from copper mines in the UK-especially the copper landscapes at Kapunda and Burra – many of the geological formations are totally alien. Its all weathered and shaped and contorted sandstone, an ancient Read more
One strand to my research here has been to track down depictions of mining landscapes in major art gallery collections. I have been working with Senior Curator of Australian Art at the South Australia Art Gallery in Adelaide to identify items in their collection and use them for future study as the project develops. Read more
In 1994, I was Guest Lecturer and Artist-In-Residence at Claremont School of Art, in Perth, Western Australia. I researched and created a new body of work for an exhibition there which focussed on the voyages which brought the first Europeans, by default, to Western Australia, where they declared the land to be ‘Terra Nullis’, Read more
The final site in the Cornish Copper Triangle is at Kapunda, where I met geologist and Cornish historian Greg Drew for a tour of the major sites. Greg is a really important authority on the history of Cornish mining, and has been responsible for much of the preservation, interpretation of, and recognition of the Read more
Today, I visited the second destination in the Cornish Copper Triangle, at Burra, originally Burra, Burra, meaning ‘Big, Big’, known as the ‘Monster Mine’ for its productivity. It closely resembles the Great Opencast at Parys Mountain, Anglesey, where I have previously done a lot of work, with a big hole filled with bright blue Read more
