Negative Space celebrates the unexpected joy of space in central WA.

To a newcomer, Wiluna (pop. 200) is a town defined by negative space – surrounded by deep open-cut mines, big empty skies, kilometres of gravel roads, and a distinct lack of basic amenities. FIFO operations have eased the once-thriving gold mining town into palliative care, as it is swallowed up by the void created by centralisation.

In many ways, my 2 years in a town with no shops and one petrol bowser was where I finally had the space to formulate who I was going to be as an adult, thanks to the vacuum created by this lifestyle that lacked so much.

I collected an industrial steel spring, and discovered the next morning that a mud wasp had built on it with red dust. The wasp vanished, leaving a delicate nursery space which I accentuated with 9kt gold- Wiluna’s reason for being. Just as I encountered the nest by happenstance, so too did I discover by chance the potential of a tiny desert town’s negative space.

Medium: Steel, Gold
Size: 46cm x 50cm x 1.7cm
Region: Mid West