Short Stories

I recently moved back to my hometown of Adelaide after twenty years. What has struck me is the number of abandoned petrol stations I’ve seen spread out across the landscape, along with the fenced-off  vacant land  that has been there ever since I was a kid. Travelling by car with various family members over the past few months, and being part of the ongoing conversation about the rising price of petrol these days, all the while passing deserted servos, motivated me to look into them. Out of curiosity, I decided to map the  abandoned petrol stations  that currently litter South Australia because I’m a visual learner. And no one has done it yet. I approached this task with the intention to try and make connections. Between neglected places and ownership. Between environmental impact and accountability. Between fossil fuels and renewable energy. Between integrated land management and social well-being. Between my new-found home in Adelaide and me. I started this pro...

Dusty red and gold lanterns droop from a yellowing ceiling in the dark. Antique wooden tables hide under white cotton tablecloths. Unfilled cardboard boxes stand atop one another on the brown laminated floor in the corner of the room. The stillness in the closed restaurant is lonesome. Abandoned ghosts serve an empty building that has fallen into disrepair. The Hong Kong Palace only accepts orders from the past. Still, the deliveries continue to roll out to customers that don’t exist anymore. Outside, overgrown weeds split concrete footpaths that exhibit fading graffiti. Across the street from the Chinese takeaway stands the Anglican Church of the Holy Redeemer. The fragmented house of prayer is forever waiting. Waiting for the sun to rise. Waiting for the street lights to change. Waiting for the years to pass. Waiting for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Always waiting for salvation. Perhaps, one day, the ghosts of Hong Kong Palace will find themselves here, enduring worship and hav...

My husband asked me what I thought of the destroyed Neolithic pots at Ai Weiwei’s exhibition. I was curious about my favourite interests, archaeology and art coming together. Thirty glass jars on a wooden shelf contain powdered Chinese Neolithic pottery that Ai Weiwei had broken and grounded to fine dust. It is suggestive of a memorial site. A series of cremations. Alluvial debris. Stardust. Granules that once had a form and function are now symbolic of a bygone era. In adjacent rooms, Chinese artefacts are displayed as readymades. Neolithic vases are inscribed with the Coca-Cola logo in red and gold paint. Ai Weiwei drops a Han Dynasty Urn, captured in three black and white photographs in the mid-90s. My thoughts concerning his artworks were not about defacing antiquity or desecrating the past. Instead, I considered what values the collective ‘we’ assign to the past. Artefacts that ‘survived’ are considered valuable because they represent information of that period, even if mass-produ...