blog 5 - Rusted wrecks

Car wrecks pervade the bush in The Curlew’s Eye. There’s something eerie about these burned-out vehicles, car parts, discarded white goods, crumbling house foundations, 44-gallon drums. Empty, rusting vessels and tools. The refuse of humans, with the bush going on in life around and through them. Wet season, dry season, fire. 

For me there’s a haunting poignancy to these memory chambers of human experience, vacated of the lives that drove them. I wonder what conversations, fears, jokes, families, loners, hopes, dreams, songs they’ve carried. Did they end in violent tragedy, a final reckless act? Or simply a car door slam and footsteps walking away? The unknown element adds to these sculptures of abandonment and malfunction. Then again perhaps they are just the reminder carcasses, emblems of the material world’s demise. The wonder machines are rotting.

Photos: KManton, car wrecks, Batchelor, NT

Questions…

For me car wrecks have a haunted feel about them, like abandoned houses.

What are some of the most memorable haunted spaces you remember from books you’ve read?