Big Sky by Adam Ferguson

Another recent photobook acquisition is Adam Ferguson’s Big Sky. Speaking about the book, Ferguson writes:

Big Sky is a photographic survey of Australia's heartland. Drawing on childhood memories and travelling documentation, I observe fading iconic events, de-population in small-towns, Aboriginal connection to Country, pastoralism, the impacts of globalisation and the adversity of climate change. Through this work I attempt to challenge and position archetypal tropes of Australian identity with the complex realities of contemporary life in Australia’s arid interior.

Growing up in the south-western suburbs of Sydney, I had little exposure to the realities of rural Australia. My understanding came from poems and movies depicting those archetypal tropes that Ferguson attempts to portray and challenge through this work. Interestingly, I now find myself living within this arid interior amidst the complex realities of contemporary life within the Australian Outback. Below is a frame from the book showing farming couple Kent Morris and Sam Cormack, their children, and Kent’s mother Lainie on Gunggari Country, Kandimulla Property south of Mitchell.