Mineral Histories of the Flinders Ranges

One of the new projects I’m working on with my collaborator Dea Morgain, involves a series of investigations of mineral and mining histories in the Flinders Ranges region of South Australia.

The modes of enquiry for this project encompass a mixture of infrared photography to produce large-scale panoramas of abandoned mining sites in the Flinders, as well as close-up macro-photography of mineral samples from these sites – sites dating from the colonial period of mainly copper extraction, but also sites related to the ancient trade in ochre. Ochre from the Flinders Ranges has been traded across the Australian continent and to island neighbours for tens of thousands of years, testifying to a history for mineral extraction in Australia dating well beyond the current moment.

A small selection of images from the project so far can be found below.