This dam wall—birthed from colonial dreams—is a fragile balancing act. It was made, less than fifty years ago, out of thousands of stones, blasted from a mountain on Miriwoong Country in the largest non-nuclear explosion in Australian history, and placed one on top of the other, incarcerating a once roaring body of water, now contained and systematically managed at twenty times the size of Sydney Harbour. The town where I live was built because of this dam. There is an apparent robustness here, a sense of permanence at first glance. But there is also a hidden violence and fragility. Some day the ‘wall’ that Australia has placed its faith in, with such certainty, will fall.

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While making this work, I came across striking archival images of the site from the 1960s and 1970s depicting an abundance of men in white clothes, walking on, surveying and drowning other people’s land, and looking obtusely satisfied with the violence of their labour.