To Love is To Surrender

I was born and raised in Tasmania/lutruwita,  ‘To Love is to Surrender' is my ode to the way this land has raised me.   

This land is a brand on my heart, a continuous call home, it haunts me like a lover I just can't quit. 

This land sticks with you, no matter how far you go. Maybe I'm biased, but to me, nothing compares.

My intention with this series was to capture the concept of ‘Tasmanian Gothic’. The term "gothic" evokes feelings of solitude, a haunting atmosphere, dark imagery, and an underlying sense of unease.

The concept for my series feels particularly relevant when considering Tasmania's rich and complex history and its geographical isolation.

My work for this series is inspired by the beauty of Keith Lane’s series ‘Light’ which is a series of oil landscapes that to me, perfectly encapsulate the idea of Tasmanian gothic in image form.

Colonial values idealise conformity and percieved control over land as the metrics for beauty. 

I aim to counter those norms by honestly showing Tasmania's nature, culture, and history.

This series aims to show the rugged and often unwelcoming landscape as loved without making it palatable. 

While my photos are relatively abstract in content, I hope that when combined as a series they express a deep, personal affection and respect for Tasmania in all its weirdness and wildness.

Tasmanian Gothic (The original poem I wrote which inspired this project)

This land will swallow you alive

If you don't find a way to love it right

There's something about the way the gnarled dead trees

Stand there in the empty field

Limbs still reaching out from the fog

For something

The way the Fields of long dry windswept grass

Spend their days whispering secrets

You could never understand

The soil red with rust

Always caught under fingertips

An icy howling wind that's just begging to come in

Shaking the land with terror

This earth was made for fire

Made,

For you to

sink into the soil and rest in it

Rest with a history sleeping fitfully alongside you

As wildfires rage above

Leaving rows and rows and rows of

Burned bodies of trees

only for Frankenstein versions to rise again new and green

This land is abundant

Abundant but always hungry for more

This earth is made for floods

My lover tells me you must always honour the river at its source

Lest it's mouth become too scorned and angry

And claim the land with its tongue

Lest it drag you down too

Down into its murky bed

These mountains hazardous and looming demand your respect

Small towns sit nestled at their feet in reverence or maybe

Subservience

To the things we cannot conquer

To love this land is to surrender yourself to it

There's something about the way that when the devils cry out they sound like they're screaming bloody murder

And the birds circle you excited to rummage through whatever you may leave behind

The bush calls to you

Your heart knows it to

Always

Dreaming of the part of you left behind

Nestled there among the water, earth and trees

Your heart knows its true

That

In all the ways that really matter

You can never leave this land behind you