This work reconsiders Australian landscape traditions through the suburban backyard, examining how post-war migrant communities inhabited and transformed the nation.
The story is ordinary. Christmas Day, 2016. I was living in East Gippsland at the time. Early morning, the house still asleep, children not yet awake. I stepped outside with my camera after noticing a beautiful fog slowly rising across the landscape. My photographs were not staged or constructed for the purpose of making an image. They emerged from a moment that simply unfolded. There was no plan – only light, and stillness.
I often work from a place of attentiveness rather than construction. These images come from being present, allowing the environment to reveal itself rather than directing it. Photography becomes an act of noticing, of slowing down enough to witness subtle shifts in atmosphere and feeling.
My practice examines the everyday landscape as a site of memory, nostalgia and cultural translation. Working primarily with photography installation and alternative processes, I combine conceptual and documentary methods to explore how personal histories intersect with broader social, cultural and environmental narratives.
Having grown up on a dairy farm in Poland, my understanding of space, labour and backyard life differs greatly from that of Australian suburbia. Since moving to Australia in 2009, I have become fascinated by the Australian backyard as both a cultural symbol and a contested site. In my recent exhibition projects such as Hills Hoist, domestic objects like the clothesline serve as recurring motifs highlighting the surreal qualities of suburban life and the shrinking green spaces shaped by contemporary urban development.
Australian Backyard is also a project about love and universal childhood memories. Through slow observation and material sensitivity, my work considers how landscapes hold traces of the past, and how changing environments shape our sense of belonging and collective memory.
Summer Haze exhibition T3, 36 Wellington St, Collingwood, VIC
Dates: 2 February – 29 March 2026
Carolyn Cardinet | Gala Jane | Aldona Kmieć | Brigita Lastauskaite
Curated by Satellite Projects