Aldona Kmieć: Hills Hoist

This project began with a single image: an old suburban backyard clothesline Aldona Kmieć encountered after migrating to Australia in 2009. Rusty, noisy and rotating in the wind, this oddly domestic device evoked memories of Aldona’s rural childhood in Poland and symbolised the emotional tension between past and present.

This work documents memories and one of the final harvests on Aldona’s family dairy farm in Poland during summer. Through subdued colours and alternative processes such as cyanotypes and analogue photography, Aldona chronicles the family’s daily life as they continue to farm under increasing economic and political pressure. A mixture of old and new photographs depicts changes to the land, buildings, machinery and farming practices, evoking the unstable internal landscape of memory, as it blurs, shifts and fades.

Opening night launch is Thursday 13 November, 5.30pm to 7pm.