Polixeni Papapetrou

Polixeni Papapetrou
Australian, born 1960; died 2018

In the Wimmera 1864 #1 2006
pigment ink print; edition 4/6
Geelong Gallery, Gift of Dr Robert Nelson through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2010
Courtesy of the Estate of Polixeni Papapetrou

In Polixeni Papapetrou’s Haunted country series she frames the Australian bush as a site of mystery, dislocation, and danger. Papapetrou focussed on historical episodes of lost children in the bush: a subject that was widely documented and interpreted in Australian newspapers, literature, and works of art like McCubbin’s Lost 1886 and Lost 1907.

Papapetrou stated:

My desire was to create photographs that embodied the harrowing psychological aspects of these stories. I wanted to somehow draw the viewer into this emotional space, experience the undercurrent of the psychological drama unfolding and make connections between past and present consciousness about land and country.

In the Wimmera 1864 #1 recalls the disappearance of three children who were lost in mallee scrub in the Wimmera District in August 1864.