Conclave

Balanced haphazardly upon off-cuts from a Cherrywood tree cut up the summer past, a small white motion-detection camera clumsily frames a bush track running along the lower perimeter of my home in the Dandenong Ranges. Trampled leaves, wombat scat, flattened grasses, and partings in the ferns reveal a passage used by the critters inhabiting the cold-climate rainforest of the Dandenong Ranges.

The camera initially served as a tool to glimpse into the night, a means to monitor foxes and safeguard our flock of chickens. Its placement—sometimes inspected by possums, tethered by spider webs, or nudged by curious wallabies—has revealed moments of serendipity and quiet sublimity.

Over the past years, as footage has accumulated, it has become a silent observer to the rhythms of the seasons. The camera's gaze prompts me to question what it means to be intruding, both as a human and as a photographer. Alongside our resident wombat named Nugs, brush-tailed possums, and a variety of native birds, the lens captures red foxes, rats, feral cats, and the occasional sambar deer—creatures whose glowing eyes pierce the darkness like visions from a dream. Yet, these animals, aestheticised through the cold, impartial gaze of the camera, are agents of severe ecological damage to this land I care for deeply.

This passageway, a sanctuary for native animals, doubles as a hunting ground for invasive species. As their habitats shrink and the human footprint swells, The Conclave reflects this convergence—a meeting place of species, a stage for survival, conflict, and coexistence. Through this project, I aim to explore the delicate balance of life within this rainforest and confront the paradoxes of care, intrusion, and the consequences of our expanding presence in the natural world.