a volcano in my backyard? (2026)

From June 6 to August 1 2026 works from the Lithic Traces in the Archive project will be on display every Saturday at the Daylesford Museum from 11-3pm. The exhibition brings together prints and works on paper with elements of the museum collection incuding geological samples, stereographic images and local mapping.

Initial work from Lithic Traces in the Archive was part of a 2024-2025 Baldessin Studio State Library of Victoria Tate Adams Memorial Fellowship. This project worked with visual representations in the library collection, back to the times of its foundation following the Victorian Gold Rushes. It was initially prompted by discovering a 55-page atlas c.1861 ‘Impressions of maps in every stage of printing’ by the Geological Survey of Victoria in the online catalogue. In 2024 I asked myself, if this collection of maps shows the breakdown of the map printing process in 1861, what might be generated by similarly breaking down ideas around present-day knowledge of, or assumption about, the ground underfoot?

Subsequently, representations of different aspects of how the geological (rocks, mining, deep time) were discovered in the library collection. But these records were always partial, and it became obvious that both the stones of the building and Country that was being represented, were asking me to address their restlessness at being excluded from the archive.