Bay of Fires (hashtag dronephotooftheday)

Bay of Fires is included in every “most instagrammable places in Australia” list that pops up on the internet. The seemingly endless drone photos popping up on people’s social media feeds capture the raw umber orange and overcast grey of the lichen-encrusted rocks, the brilliant blues of the clear sea. Almost inevitably there will be someone stretched out on a rock. The hashtags will include blessed, of course. In our rush to memorialise landscapes in digital form, we tend to miss the feel and experience of a place. We pixelate it, share it and wait for the likes to ping in to give us the sense of “I was there” satisfaction, but miss the essence of the place. By juxtaposing the improbably slow, laborious process of naturally-dyeing and weaving silk into a structured grid against a hastily-shot photograph, this piece is a woven metaphor for our increasingly detached interactions with nature, and forms part of the ongoing conversation around how we exist in the world.