Wastelanding is a sound and temperature installation that presents a critical mass of quotes extracted from media reports, statements from politicians, and research interviews with regional residents. These quotes describe the quality of the landscape where the Adani Carmichael coal mine is located prior to land clearing.

 

Collectively they paint a problematic image of the site as a ‘wasteland’, legitimising coal mining as a productive land use for an unproductive site.

 

This practice of aligning a site’s value with profitable land use or specific visual values is a settler colonial and capitalist mode of engaging with the environment.

 

By clustering these perspectives together the installation aims to draw attention to and prompt reflection on the process of devaluing land - or wastelanding - embedded across all levels of colonial governance and citizenship. Using sensory elements of heat and colour, audiences are encouraged to consider their own relationship with land values.

​

Wastelanding was shown in the group exhibition, Swelter, at Caboolture Regional Gallery in 2022-2023.