Freefall: a painting of energy shifts and movement, suggesting both the impact and the feeling we may have with so much is happening in the world to challenge people. We could be forgiven for feeling that we are freefall.
Increasing the health, social and emotional response to losing places, species or ecosystems that are important to us.
Mining activities are recognised as having profound impacts on societies and the environment they inhabit across the globe with pressures on vulnerable ecosystems in several biomes is proportionate. Whilst there relatively few and small areas supply the metallic basis for the entire industrialised world Western Australia in one. Some have argued that in order to both preserve both livelihoods and habitats to many, often rare and endangered species, particularly tropical ecosystems of vast biodiversity require stronger protection from interference through mining.
Research also suggested that public resistance against mining operations may rise due to increased production within and close to protected areas, highlighting the need for investigating and monitoring social dynamics around such areas.
Whilst painting this work, I also had the Juukin Gorge disaster in WA’s Pilbara in mind. This event damaged a site that held ancient remains including plaits of human hair, tools and other artefacts, and animal remains dated as 47000 years old which showed human occupation four times longer than previously thought likely throughout the last ice age and continuing until recently.
The Rio Tinto Mining Company exploration in the area destroyed an ancient rock shelter at Juukan Gorge in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. This event exposed flaws in the legislation intended to protect Cultural Heritage that legally sanctioned the mines expansion. The relationship the indigenous people that had been built over time had with the mining company also took a serious blow. The outcome of the inquiry that followed supported the need to work to rebuild relationships.
By 2025 a restoration project, instigated by the Puutu Kunti Kurrama Land Committee and funded by Rio Tinto. The tasks were to build a new concrete structure over the remains incorporating rubble from the disintegrated shelter. Puutu Kunti Kurrama Land Committee chair Burchell Hayes said the new shelter aimed to restore Indigenous Australians' sense of belonging to the area by remediating damage caused by Rio Tinto so that .
The first step in the rebuilding process at Juukan Gorge the restoration team visited Lascaux in France to understand what went into the design and the construction of the Lascaux Cave replica construction. Juukan Gorge reconstruction posed greater challenges due to destruction, as reconstruction would rely on the Traditional Owner’s memory and virtual reality modelling to guide the reconstruction. Further excavation of the damaged site also retrieved some materials of significance that could be incorporated into the rebuild. “Texture stamps" directly off Pilbara rocks, including remnants of Juukan, that will be turned into concrete moulds to make sections of the on-site replica.
Mr Hayes “There are First Nations everywhere in the world who have to deal with mining or large-scale projects who are suffering as well from an impact on their country, and impact on their own heritage."
Critical to this outcome was the willingness of the traditional owners and the mining company to work together both to repair their relationship and build a replica of the Juukan replica would ensure such destruction does not happen again. The mining company agreed to meet reconstruction costs.
