Hills Hoist

Hills Hoist is a photographic installation exploring love — for family, the land and a disappearing way of life in Poland.

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

Through digital and analogue photography, and alternative processes such as cyanotype, I document my family’s daily life under increasing economic and existential pressures. Two years in the making, the project culminated in a 2025 residency in Poland, where I collaborated with my sister on a series of cyanotype textile works using our family archives, including some photographs dating back 100 years. 

This work reconsiders Australian landscape traditions through the suburban backyard, examining how post-war migrant communities inhabited and transformed the nation. A reflection on belonging, ambiguous loss, and the emotional weight of migration, this body of work is a quiet act of determination — to preserve identity, memory, and tradition across distance and time.

Solo Exhibition:
12 November – 7 December 2025
City Library Gallery, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

 

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