AUDIO DESCRIPTION #5
PHOTOGRAPH 20
Crying
Kuba Dorabialski
Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham
August 17 - September 22 2023
Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Gadigal Country
This artwork is displayed alone on the wall, and is a framed black and white landscape photograph, measuring 50 centimetres high and 50 centimetres wide. It is printed on a soft textured paper called cotton rag and the frame is a pale raw oak with a bronze waterfall-like sculpture cascading from the bottom edge.
This photograph is the only image in the exhibition that shows the presence of the artist. It depicts a dark night-time scene featuring silhouettes of pine trees, with their tops cut off along the upper edge. A grey sky is visible through small spaces between the dense trees. The perspective is at eye-level.
The bottom third of the photograph features a grassy clearing. In the centre there is a small campfire, emitting flames so bright against the darkness that they appear white. The fire takes the shape of a circular form with short soft spikes stretching upwards. Smoke from the fire drifts towards the top right corner. The fire burns amidst a low and round pile of scrappy sticks and larger tree limbs that poke outwards. Adjacent to the fire on the right side, there is a small stack of pine branches. The location shown is the radiata pine clearing in Sunny Corner State Forest, Wiradjuri Country.
Kuba Dorabialski is an artist, filmmaker, and educator originally from Wrocław, Poland. These plantations, initially established for the timber and construction industry, also serve as a haven for Eastern European migrants to Australia, as familiar landscapes reminiscent of European pine forests. It is also an entirely false landscape imposed on unceded First Nations land, and the spectre of colonialism always haunts these sites of nostalgia and contemplation.