A General Method

An examination of geological time and human ecological intervention. 11 C-Type prints of cross sections of Arkose Sandstone from Beech Forest, Otways. Collaboration with Dr Tarryn Handcock. Developed with technical support from geologist Derek Walters.

Arkose Sandstone, pink and red from its high feldspar content, embodies millions of years of erosion, deposition, and compression. These systematic processes, shaped by contingent forces, inform the project’s title: a “general method” of natural formation. Yet the stone also registers human histories in the Otways, where Gadubanud (Katubanut) peoples lived for over 5000 years before European settlement in the 1800s brought dispossession, intensive logging, and ecological collapse: another general method of colonial expansion.

In the prints, sandstone cross-sections function as physical and conceptual artefacts, stratified narratives where deep time meets rapid extraction. Each layer becomes a marker of duration and disruption, framing geology within cultural and ecological contexts.