Fine Art Photograph
29.7 x 42cm, framed
Just outside Castlemaine lies Pennyweight Flat, a small children’s cemetery overlooking the old forest creek diggings. During the height of the goldrush, around 200 babies and young children were buried there—many lost to dysentery, disease, accidents, and the brutal living conditions of the camps. Most of the graves are shallow and unmarked, scattered quietly amongst the trees. The place has stayed with me ever since i first visited. It feels impossibly quiet, heavy with grief, but also strangely tender. I created this mother figure as someone who never left. A guardian woven into the landscape itself, watching over the children of Pennyweight Flat long after the noise of the goldfields disappeared.
