Visualising ancestral landscapes through tracing ancestral loss and artful connections. These images were created during my recent doctoral fieldwork in the United Kingdom as I sought to trace the landscapes of my ancestors, the Martin family. The Martin’s were tin miners from Cornwall, who settled in Australia in 1895. They arrived in Australia at the height of the Asiatic Influenza Pandemic. These images were captured in the grounds of the 15th century Stithians Church, in West Cornwall. Inside the church is a memorial to the Martin family. I chose to use a specially converted full spectrum colour infrared camera for this doctoral fieldwork. Full colour spectrum, infrared photography is especially suited to my project as it allows me to visualise ghostly ancestral landscapes; thereby capturing the entire range of infrared light wavelengths (EM Spectrum). For these images, I have chosen to leave them as I captured them rather than convert them to any other colour.
Dawne Fahey was born in Melbourne and lives in Sydney. Dawne is an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the use of visual arts (abstract cold wax & oil paintings, experimental hand-made photographic processes & documentary photographic practice) creative writing and research (autotheory & poetic inquiry). Dawne is a PhD Candidate in the School of Humanities & Communication Arts, Western Sydney University. The title of her practice-led arts-based research project is, Visualising Empathy: An alchemist in the landscape. Dawne's creative arts practice embodies an intense curiosity between self and other, in an exploration of the intersection between cultural immersion, landscape, personal meanings and sensibility. In her work, Dawne seeks to find emotional depth in ordinary events and everyday objects and the extraordinary in the world that surrounds her.