Cut tree, cut rock / woke in fright

cut tree, cut rock

The coast along Williamstown, traditional lands of the Yalukit-Willam clan, was once a thick she-oak forest. The forest spanned from the west bank of the Maribyrnong River, up to what is now known as Footscray. Recent research by cultural historian Greg Thorpe and Caroline Martin (Boonwurrung), showed that she-oaks were sacred among the Boonwurrung people. One ancient she-oak—the ‘Message Tree’—was used as a community notice board from the 1830s to 1840s. The tree was felled by city council in 1857 despite conservation attempts by local White settlers. This effort highlighted the tree’s significance to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Today, reminders of the great she-oak forest lurk in historical land surveys and city council promises of revegetation in Victoria.

Informed by the artist’s research on the 2.5 billion-years-old granite rocks in the South of India, which, over time have been crudely painted over for commercial purposes and lost their natural forms, Powell combined the haunting remnants of these rocks in Hyderabad city—where the artist resided—and images of she-oaks to create Cut Tree Cut Rock. Cut Tree Cut Rock is an autostereogram, also known as Magic Eye. When viewed with unfocused eyes, three-dimensional images of seed pods and a boulder stack emerge from the noise—spectres of the she-oak and Hyderabadi rocks hidden within the floating planes.

Made on Bunurong and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country.

All digital rendering and 3D modelling by Lindsay McKittrick.

woke in fright

Cut tree, cut rock was a part of woke in fright (November to December 2022), a hyper/hypo-critical project curated by Nikki Lam and Mat Spisbah. Presented at the Substation, Newport, as a part of NEIGHBOURHOOD Festival 2022, the exhibition invites local and international artists to break down permission structures and decipher conformance from intent.