Earth Hearth

Earth Hearth considers the transition of the mallee root from a source of water to a source of fire. Tracing this journey from the earth to the hearth exposes an extraordinary adaptation to the arid environment, one of resilience coupled with fragility.

… the mallee root is a lignotuber, a resilient drought and fire resistant structure that acts as a water storage and re-generative system… fire and drought became determinants of vegetation.

White M. After the Greening, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1994

The collection of water from the lignotubers under the earth provided life in a dry land with little surface water. The clearing of the land created discarded mounds of mallee roots that were collected and subsequently burnt as firewood. The narrative of water and fire are constants in this arid land.