21 196

Uluru (Ayers Rock), Northern Territory, 2010
Cape Arid NP, Western Australia, 2010
The Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Victoria, 2010
Renmark, South Australia, 2010
Lakes Entrance, Victoria, 2010
Blue Waters Lodge, Esperance, Western Australia, 2010
Mildura, Victoria, 2010
Shannon NP, Western Australia, 2010
Simpson Desert, South Australia, 2010
Margaret River, Western Australia, 2010
Mitchell Plateau, Kimberley, Western Australia, 2010
Leeuwin-Naturaliste NP, Western Australia, 2010
Southern Cross, Simpson Desert, South Australia, 2010
Perth, Western Australia, 2010
Piccaninny Creek, Purnululu NP, Northern Territory, 2010
Melbourne, Victoria, 2010
Cape Le Grand NP, Western Australia, 2010
West MacDonnell NP, Northern Territory, 2010
Highway 1, Western Australia, 2010
Princes Highway, Victoria, 2010
Castlemaine, Victoria, 2010
Oasis Backpackers, Mildura, Victoria, 2010
Alice’s Secret, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, 2010
Piccaninny Creek, Purnululu NP, Northern Territory, 2010
Simpson Desert, South Australia, 2010
Margaret River, Western Australia, 2010
Shannon NP, Western Australia, 2010
Gibb River Road, Kimberley, Western Australia, 2010
A32, South Australia, 2010
Moon and Venus, Simpson Desert, South Australia, 2010
Maits Rest, Great Ocean Road, Victoria, 2010
21 196 (2010)

“All our activites are linked to the idea of journeys. And I like to think that our brains have an information system giving us orders for the road, and that here lie the mainsprings of our restlessness. At an early stage man found he could spill out all this information in one go, by tampering with the chemistry of the brain. He could fly off on an illusory journey or an imaginary ascent. Consequently settlers naïvely identified God with the vine, hashish or a hallucinatory mushroom, but true wanderers rarely fell prey to this illusion. Drugs are vehicles for people who have forgotten to walk.”
Bruce Chatwin

This project tells a story – my story of travelling across the Australian continent for three months covering 21 196 kilometres by car and how I attempted to capture the ephemerality and authenticity of journeying. Although the photographs are a visual account of a personal experience, they also allude to universal issues related to sociology and politics.

Images of paths and roads create the central visual theme carrying the flow of the narrative but they also reflect the forceful Western concept of navigating through the land contradicting the attitude of the indigenous people of the Australian Outback, who perceive themselves to be an integral part of their natural environment which sustains them.

I wanted to find out if it is possible to create a sense of place through a collection of photographic imagery and explore how our perception of spaces and places is influenced by our respective cultural knowledge. As my perspective of the land is informed by Western European culture, the viewer will find references to visual traditions of Romanticism and the Arcadian ideal.