Boom or Bust: Alfred Clayton and the mysteries of the West Coast Pt III, is a pilgrimage through time, place and memory. Walking with my father in a landscape of collapse and renewal, the mysteries of the Tasmanian West Coast begin to unravel. This is not just my story—it is the story of a land that prevails, fails and succeeds, and a culmination of the tapestry of lives that came before. 

This film is a story of a small, abandoned town on the West Coast of Tasmania. Through this work, I retrace the steps of my great-great grandfather Alfred Clayton, the chief engineer of the railway between North Mt Lyell mine and the town of Pillinger in the late 1800s. The booming mining town officially went bust in 1920 and little remains of what once was as the forest reclaimed the landscape. What’s left is a story of all the lives and hard work that came before and nature’s resilience. The Super 8 film captures fragmented glimpses of the land, what Alfred would have seen 100 years earlier.

The work examines the intersection of history, family, and identity; it explores the physical and psychological journeys we take in our lives to understand who we are and where we come from