Sue Ford
Continuum
June 23 - July 17 2004
This series of images Continuum has been inspired from my memory of a fire by the Yarra River (Birrarung) during the mid 1960's. Experiencing a landscape in the process of being transformed by fire was unforgettable. Like the marks left on the trees after a fire, the event is imprinted permanently on my mind. In almost any bush that you might be walking through there are always bone-grey survivors from a previous fire; these black fire marks are like memories.
The extended cycle of regrowth, like that of the Black Wattle which quickly covers the blackened earth after a fire only to come crashing down a short 30 years later, is reflected in the work. These images are constructed from photographs from my archive of over 40 years. The works include many stories, many fires, and are set in different times and different places.
Continuum, like much of my earlier work, for instance, the Shadow Portraits and Somewhere in France (a work that is developed from my grandfathers First World War diary) continues my interest in Australian history and the relationship between past and present and the nature of impermanence.
Sue Ford, Sydney 2004