Woodlines

The Woodlines diptych was created as part of the Terrane Project, an Art on the Move residency at the Museum of the Goldfields in Kalgoorlie-Boulder/Karlkurla, using aerial imagery and soil and ochre collected from the area. The project brought together the archive, the woodlines, and the underlying mineral realm. The woodlies were temporary light rail tracks used between 1900-1964 to supply timber for energy (early water condensers, steam engines and power stations and domestic fireplaces) and mine supports. Whilst temporary in nature (as each area was harvested) the full extent of tramlines covered an area of 3.04 million hectares or roughly the size of Tasmania. 193 km of railway tracks formed a shifting network rejigged and redrawn over the decades.

Traces and memories remain in the landscape. There has been natural regeneration, but with changes to ecological function whose scale and significance is hard to assess. Whilst perceived as ‘wilderness’ it was never empty (as traditional Country) and these changes from wood harvesting (often intense clear-felling of areas) is more about what you cannot see: shifting baseline syndrome.