CAROLYN YOUNG
BOX-GUM GRASSY WOODLANDS
My favourite photography genre is landscape. A few years ago I found myself collecting from the landscape and making still life photographs. My initial reason was to show the detail that can be lost in a landscape photograph: the diversity at our feet, in the shrub layer and the trees above. For about four years I have been documenting box-gum grassy woodlands in NSW and Victoria. Once common, these ecosystems have been reduced to small pockets amongst farmed land, along roadsides, reserves and in little tucked away cemeteries. I return to the same sites and shoot seasonally. I respond to ecologists and the landholders – their knowledge forms a collective story and shows me what I need to photograph. Some of these places are good examples of intact box-gum grassy woodlands, others have been cleared for sheep pasture, and others are ‘the lucerne paddock’. Box-gum grassy woodlands that have been fertilised will never support the same diversity of native plants again, but left alone and unmanaged, they will support a mass of weeds. My aim with applying the repetitive still life form in my photographs was to show something of these woodlands – past, present and future.
BIOGRAPHY
Carolyn Young’s art practice is mostly about beauty, the environment and questions concerning sustainability. Carolyn is based near Canberra in New South Wales and is completing her PhD in Visual Arts at The Australian National University. Before studying photography and art, Carolyn completed an honours degree in Natural Resources, and worked professionally as an environmental scientist. Her photographs can be viewed at www.carolynyoung.com.au