Sacred sights

Untitled. From the series, Still Lives. St Peters, NSW

We are accustomed to seeing objects (the influence of advertising campaigns, perhaps) given more significance then what they are worth. So, the purpose of this series was to raise the status of discarded things to cultural signposts, to give them another moment to be remembered or even worshiped.

A few years back, a PHd Student from LaTrobe University had an epiphany while standing in front of the pillars of Stonehenge. What if the theories about how monuments functioned in pagan rituals, to gather communities of people to share in ceremonies and appease the Gods…what if these ideas were far-fetched and too elaborate? Instead, this aspiring archaeologist thought: what if could they have had a practical, more mundane purpose? Could they be objects to mark and commemorate, for now and generations to come, a collective memory?

This theory has gained some traction in archeological circles and actually makes a lot of common sense. There may have been little value to the symbolic nature of art for the ancient Druids or, for that matter, indigenous Australians, whose Rock paintings are considered by many now as practical “memory places” like journal entries and manuals for survival.