For the series 'None of this was done with us in mind' I travelled across bodies of water to K’gari, which translates to, paradise. The residency was 7 days and nights of creating work from dawn til dark, total immersion into a space unknown to me prior to arriving. On K’gari there was a palpable sense of each of the elements being connected to the other, the fundamental cycles of life were so present and superseded the fleeting presence of humans. Yet my very presence bore home how vulnerable these environments are to the devastation we as humans exact. This work hasn’t let me go. Something in the unsayability of the experience and the images made on K’gari keeps drawing me back, a reoccurring dream. Like a dream this work has been a place to wander and wonder with the prehistory or post story to the images remaining open, suspended. The frequent revisiting of this work and the mining of this archive of images has revealed itself as a work that delves into memory, how we create them and preserve them, and how ultimately they aren’t fixed, rather they are fluid and iterative.

The triptych Controlled Burn speaks to the fragile nature of the relationship between humans and the more than human world and asks us to consider whether our desire to control is integral to the climate crisis we are now facing.

Virginia Woods-Jack