Cameron Clarke

Situated in high-country New South Wales, Cabramurra is Australia's highest populated township. Constructed in 1954 by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority as the northern administrative base for the scheme, Cabramurra is now home to a small community who work primarily for the company.

Photographed in 2009 as part of Cameron Clarke’s gradute folio at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology this series of work provides a survey of the township of Cabramurra during the winter months and explores the somewhat utilitarian structures that provide the homes and services to this remote Australian community.

Takings of Place is the first solo exhibition for Melbourne based photographer Cameron Clarke. Drawing much inspiration from the photography emanating from Germany during the 1970’s and 80’s, in particular from Düsseldorf’s infamous Kunstakademie, Clarke’s large scale photographs document the German and Scandinavian landscape.

Moreover, Clarke looks at occurrences within the landscape, that in today’s fast paced society can often be dismissed or not observed at all. Oddities and novelties of the everyday; a lonely van abandoned at the edge of a forest, beach chairs huddled together on the foreshore encompassed in fog, sheep happily grazing at the edge of a major city.

Cameron Clarke’s use of large format photography in creating this body of work, a medium which impresses a very considered and formal approach on the photographer, complements his subject matter and is a process which enables the initial discovery of these, Takings of Place.

Takings of Place was produced in the European Autumn of 2010. 

 Eucalypts is an ongoing series exploring the Australian landscape and is inspired very much so by Australian landscape painters from the late 19th century, in particular Frederick McCubbin.

The end of the Second World War was a time of profound change throughout the world. For Australia in particular the period proceeding would define the nation ina most fundamental way. A shift in the nation’s immigration policy would result in the most significant influx of people into Australia since the beginning of European settlement more than 150 years prior.

The post-war Australian government, led by Prime Minister Ben Chifley, recognised that the nation was in dire need of an increased population for the purpose of strengthening defence and greater economic growth. Australia’s population of 7 million in 1945 would rapidly increase in the coming years, so much so that by the early 1970’s, the population had grown to nearly 13 million.

A fundamental instrument in achieving the above levels of population increase was the implementation of government policy that made it possible for people to migrate to Australia. To facilitate the arrival of such high numbers of immigrants,
the Australian government made travel agreements with other countries and international organisations.

One significant agreement was with the International Refugee Organisation, which made it possible for displaced persons from refugee camps throughout Europe to be granted assisted passage to Australia during the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Formal agreements with several European countries also made assisted passage to Australia accessible to many, including Dutch, German and Italian migrants.

In order to accommodate the arrival of such large volumes of people into Australia, several facilities were required to receive immigrants. One such facility was the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre located in North-Eastern Victoria. A former Australian Military Base, it was repurposed to receive and train newly arrived migrants.

Opening in 1947 Bonegilla operated in this capacity until 1971. During this period more than 300, 000 migrants passed through Bonegilla from which it is estimated that more than 1.5 million Australian’s are descended.

The traditional Aboriginal owners of the land surrounding the area chosen to establish Australia’s largest immigration reception facility of the time, referred to the area in their traditional language as

‘Bonegilla, which when translated means ‘Where Waters Meet’; a reference to where the Mitta Mitta River joins the Murray River.’

Situated on the banks of Lake Hume, the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre would indeed become an important meeting place. A place where people from foreign shores would journey to, from shipping ports throughout Europe and across vast oceans, Bonegilla would represent their destination, but only the very beginning of their new life as Australian’s.

The following landscape and portrait photographs, along with accompanying anecdotal interviews, explore the nation-defining journey of the Bonegilla migrants. 

From its secluded and humble beginnings in the mountains of West Virginia, the Potomac River meanders east on its journey to the Atlantic Coast. Coursing through steep ravines and over rock-strewn river beds in its upper reaches, the initially humble appearance of the river gradually increases in its expanse as it flows on and on, down the Potomac Valley.

Providing the conduit for a great variety of communities along its path, the Potomac slowly builds in its presence on the American landscape, collecting the waters of smaller tributaries, providing the life source for the economic activities that have flourished for generations.

Coal miners, lumber workers, fishermen, farmers and hunters in the river’s western watershed are connected to politicians, lawmakers and larger industry in its eastern expanse by the Potomac as it carves its path farther and farther east, through the nations capital, on it’s 405 mile journey to Chesapeake Bay.

The following photographic essay, produced in the late fall of 2012, uses the Potomac River as a reference point, a common thread, for the portrait and landscape images within.

In 2013 I was commissioned along with 5 other artists, working in photography through to installation, to respond to renowned Australian photographer Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007), icon of 20th century Australian photography. 

"Wolfgang Sievers’ portraits of workers and industry resonate with me, as my own documentary practice explores the connections between people, their environment and their history.  The Sievers Project has provided me with the opportunity to revisit some of the sites where Wolfgang Sievers created his iconic imagery, and to explore the changed relationship between Australian workers and their machines. I have found this opportunity to be most engaging and, given the current climate and upheaval in the Australian manufacturing industry, particularly poignant.

 It is an interesting and challenging time for many businesses operating in the field of manufacturing. In my research and development of work for this project I have had access to several manufacturing businesses in the midst of immense change and adaptation to local and global economic forces.

 The imagery I have created for this project echo’s Sievers work in its documentation of industry. It is however a departure from Sievers’ work, in that the ‘worker’ and machine are treated as completely separate. The worker in my view is still vital to the operation of manufacturing industries, however the role of the worker has drastically changed over the past 30-40 years since Sievers created his striking imagery. In the present day of more automated processes, higher input cost demands and a truly global economy and marketplace, manufacturing industries in Australia have needed to adapt. This adaptation has in some respects led to the diminished role of people in manufacturing workplaces, and moreover and unfortunately, to many of the industries for which Wolfgang Sievers produced work, closing their doors.

 In the imagery I have created for this project, at Bruck Textiles in Wangaratta and The Ford Motor Company in Geelong, I have presented the worker and the machine separately. For me this reflects upon the change in relationship between the two, which has occurred in the decades since Sievers worked for these companies. The ‘dignity’ of the worker was fundamental to Sievers’ approach and his imagery of people intricately involved with the machine demonstrates this. I too believe in the dignity of people and the work they do and it is for this reason I have given equal standing in terms of style, composition and scale to the people and machinery in my photographs for The Sievers Project."

In August 2014 I collaborated with the wonderfully talented Kate Stanton on a story exploring the lives of long-term and permanent residents of Victorian caravan parks. Kate's article is available to read here.