Peradams of a Broken Hill [2019-21]
scanned objects and digitally rendered photographsDeveloped as part of Fowlers Gap Artist Residency 2019
During my 2019 Artist Residency at Broken Hill I was inspired by many tangential themes and weird dead-ends that are yet to be resolved. This moodboard above explains to a degree my notion of mycelial networks when it comes to envisioning new works.
As this project continues to amass in it's wealth of references I plan on eventually realising this show as an exhibition and make real these ideas that continue to drift in cyberspace and on my hard drive. Inspired by the 1952 book ‘Mount Analogue’ by René Daumal and during my time spent at Fowlers Gap I began to collect metal objects on daily walks which I referred to as peradams in my effort to find some kind of metaphorical mountain or ‘Broken Hill’ to climb. The renderings and photographs taken on the Fowlers Gap property. These assemblages, rendered in crystalised form, are comprised of miscellaneous metallic objects found around the Fowlers Gap homestead. With help from Karam Hussein at UNSW A&D Makerspace, I was able to render the images and place them back into the landscape, superficially repatriating these ghostly forms of remnant human detritus.
I took inspiration directly from the Estonian folkloric creature known as a 'kratt'. I have included to my left about the history of the kratt. Beneath each image is an attached description given to the objects based on observational research taken during my residency and what followed into my dreams...
Below is an archival photograph and recolouring of a peradam chimera assemblage located at Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station, near Broken Hill (c. 2019). These entities often take the form of unidentifiable industrial bucolic refuse and wander the plains as drifters, often found settled at the bottom of valleys and ephemeral river beds (aka wadis) particularly after strong storms. This rare cryptid is often found in places of loss and erosion, and increasingly in sites of human industrial activity.
Often found floating and drifting across windswept plains, these peradam assemblages are sculpted under harsh aeolian processes, revealing a subsurface crystalline structure making them near invisible to all but the inquisitive flâneur. A distant relative to the Finno-Ugric kratt, the peradam is often found without an owner and did not have any apparent tasks to fulfil. They are often heard before seen, the sound of scraping metal indicating a nearby assemblage.
Rarely documented, each individual peradam is a clear and extremely hard stone, a true crystal harder than diamond. The discovery of a peradam is never accidental, rather resulting from some kind of inner effort. At such a moment, its “brilliant sparkle like that of a dewdrop” might catch the eye of those who truly and sincerely sought the truth. These objects continue to grow in mass and size as time passes, forming increasingly larger collections until chanced upon. They are particularly annoying for land owners where undisturbed areas can become havens for peradams to collect and must eventually be exhumed.
