Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Thoughts on 'Streets of Redfern'

Sitting with ‘Streets of Redfern’, I consider the stone steps, wooden doors, and earthly ingredients making up the cement. I consider how every part of these homes, even the synthetic elements, were, at one-point, earthly ingredients. These houses then, might, to an inhuman observer of human habitats, be seen as simply complex counterparts to gorilla nests and termite mounds. Similarly, the nature-strip is not as natural as it first appeared. Just as the homes were planned and constructed, so too was the nature-strip; the tree is tended to and pruned, the soil is weeded, the woodchip scattered wild then swept back into its boundary. Now, both homes and nature-strip unfurl to reveal their respective centres: the natural within the human, the human within the natural. Both sides of the image turned liminal, simultaneously of humanity and nature, simultaneously dead and living, occupying an endless no-space one might call, “humanature”.

[Toby Francis - z5342546]

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