Jo Bertini

The Last Refuge. (Tjoritja Trephina Gorge - East Macdonnell Ranges NT), 2022

150 × 150 × 5 cm oil on French polyester canvas

Not Available

Fragile desert floodplains are rich, fertile lodging places necessary for cycles of regeneration and renewal in the desert. The ephemeral water that flows into these areas not only support life cycles of diverse flora and fauna but also reveal and conceal the vast reservoir of histories, archeologies and anthropologies. The significance of the multitudinous ecologies that rely on the desert ‘boom & bust’ cycles have long been underestimated. The contemporary western view of deserts is a conflicted amalgam but overwhelmingly these lands are seen as potential resources. Any unnatural change or redirection of those flood waters has major impacts on these myriad species before we understand what we are losing. Solastalgia is a grieving for a lost landscape. It is more than a nostalgic sentiment, it is a form of homesickness based on an informed understanding for the value of what is lost and cannot be recovered.