4. At the World's End Highway
Song, video and images 'Dreaming Australia Now'
This video and artwork from August 2018 is the first Dreaming Australia STORYTELLER PROJECT where we invite artists and others to recount a journey of encounter with Aboriginal Australia.
Watch the video, ‘Dreaming Australia Now’ —
PHOTO ESSAY
At the World’s End —
The project began with a song lyric encapsulating the theme in a koan-like meditation on meaning just out of reach—
That was then / Here I am / No, I haven’t said a thing / What’s come before? / I don’t know when
The first scenes were inspired by our arrival at the World’s End Highway which, surprisingly perhaps, is located in rural South Australia (see map below).
We shot here at the site of a disused church, a most appropriate building to have at the ‘end of the world’—
The song begins with, ‘I was sitting under an old gum tree’, and this scene describes, ‘Standing up to move, I take my rest against that old tree’.
Next, another naked figure enters the ruins bearing witness to an empty mission. The figure is named Eve-Christ and carries the calvery cross symbolising the retaking of that which has been abandonned decayed and destroyed.
Trephina Gorge —
The next shots accompany the lines, ‘I’m still searching for that woman in my mind…’ and were taken at the Trephina Gorge (map below). In the old desert culture, people were buried in trees and in a deep way become the tree after death.
White Gate —
There are many plays between tree and cross, witness this open air church at White Gate on the outskirts of Alice Springs—
Lake Hart —
More shots was taken at the Lake Hart Salt Lakes in the southern desert below Lake Eyre. We play again with the Christ story and his desert trials, positioning the crown of thorns in a woman’s hands.
Is she preparing the crown or is she wearing it? The metaphor of Eve at the moment of the Fall and the imminent discovery of shame is also simultaneously apparent in this striking image.
Barrow Creek Race Track —
The final site on the route is more abandonned buildings, this time at Barrow Creek race track 300kms north of Alice Springs. It was there I heard the legend of one old man who reckoned his grandfather out-ran a thoroughbred around that ‘race’ track, when put to the test by his colonial master.
THE SONG
The song positions the subject within the setting of an iconic Australian bush image—‘I was sitting under an old gum tree’ where, ‘I was living the Australian Dream’. But something’s not right, he’s not moving and suffers a kind of cultural amnesia—‘I was waiting for someone to come and show me / What it really means’.
This prompts a reflection on what came before—‘That was then / Here I Am / No, I haven’t said a thing / What’s come before / I don’t know when.’
Compare the lyrics of the traditional bush ballad, Waltzing Matilda, ‘Once a jolly swagman / Camped by a billabong’. Which is introduction enough, we discover, to find that the swagman’s Australian Dream of a lamb roast is about to be interrupted by a claim that he’s camped on someone else’s private property. I often reflect that Banjo Paterson’s swagman could just as easily have been an Aboriginal clansman as the itinerant stockman depicted in standard imagery.
Read what Heather Savage had to say about ‘Jason Freddi releases Watershed Album’ -
https://topbuzzmagazine.com/music/jason-freddis-releases-watershed-album/
THE ARTISTS
‘Dreaming Australia’ features video and song by JASON FREDDI, music by ISAAC BARTER and photographic sculpture by COREY THOMAS . SHANAZ MARTIN and MERCEDES ZANKER graciously accepted the role of natural models. Shot on location in Central Australia to illustrate the theme, ‘Dreaming Australia Now’.
The sites—
Beautiful. Lyrical. Landscaped! ❤️