The Land of Make Believe
‘The Land of Make Believe’ is a series of photographic objects exploring the interaction between people and nature over time, and the contemporary experience of ‘urban nature’ focusing on a small lake and park called Dog Swamp.
Dog Swamp was once a swamp, what you might call a true natural environment. As Europeans colonised the area this land was cleared, the swamps drained and its resources collected. As the population grew the need to develop the land into something ‘useful’ increased. It became a commercial play area called The Land of make Believe. A mock castle was erected, and European barn yard animals were brought in to replace the displaced native wildlife. When this venture failed, the land was again cleared, this time re-habilitated and transformed into back into a swamp.
These images are printed on handmade paper using materials collected from Dog Swamp (Leaves, tree bark, weeds, litter, and swamp water). Here, the materiality of the swamp is represented in the work and the interaction between people and nature, inherent to urban nature becomes clear.
