Boom or Bust, 2024 | East Pillinger, Tasmania

Shot on Canon 310XL Super 8 Cine Camera, Ektachrome Super8 Film Single Channel Video (scanned and digitized), 01:54 min 

This series is a story of a small, abandoned town on the West Coast of Tasmania, a vessel for a story about personal connection to place. 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 town officially went bust in 1920 and little remains of what once was. What’s left is a story of all the lives and hard work that came before and nature’s resilience.

The installation features medium format film photographs of the abandoned town on a Hasselblad with Portra 400, framed with century-old, recycled hardwood; the imperfections echo the decay and resilience of Pillinger. A Super 8 video on Ektachrome film captures fragmented glimpses of the land, the world Alfred would have seen 100 years earlier. Finally, fabric works featuring analogue photographic photos create an immersive experience, simulating train tracks and movement through the Tasmanian rainforest.