Pine Study II: Wattle & Pine, North East Victoria (2010)
SD Video | 3:47Pine Study II: Wattle & Pine, North East Victoria implies the bleed between two landscapes: the Australian Radiata Pine (Pinus radiata) plantations of North East Victoria and the memorial forests of Israel. Both cases are the result of landscape production and imply the displacement of their respective indigenous communities.
Shot in standard definition video amongst the managed plantations adjacent to the town of Bright, but also recall Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua’s short story Facing the Forest which culminates in a destroyed Palestinian village being revealed through a forest fire.
The light conditions in the video, caused by the thick canopy of an efficiently planned monoculture, create a stark atmosphere, which silhouettes the foliage and structure of the trees against the bleak days of late Autumn. In amongst the pine trees (which have since been harvested, having reached the end of their thirty-year planting cycle) were growing various wattles, including Ovens Valley Wattle (Acacia pravissima), a variety endemic to the subalpine regions, reaching up to the light in a botanical battle.
Solo exhibition: Pines, Panoramas and Palestine MADA Gallery, Melbourne 2013
Experimenta Screen Program, Australian Pavilion, Shanghai World Expo 2010
