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July 21, 2004
Europe's imperial eye represents Australia as terra nullius. The frontier imagery simultaneously reflects the colonial and continuing confrontation with alien environmental conditions.
Wolfgang Sievers, the Hamersley Ranges, 1977
Australia's frontier developmentalism centred around a need to 'clear the way' for development - to establish a regulatory landscape in which impediments to development are controlled and brought to order.
Wolfgang Sievers, Broken Hill, 1959
This comprised an emptying of landscapes of unwanted elements: trees were cleared; rivers dammed; and indigenous populations slaughtered and contained. On the other hand, the landscapes were filled with new elements: new property titles; new pastoral and agricultural species; mining and new people.
Wolfgang Sievers, North Broken Hill Associated Smelters, NSW 1980
On the 'edge of empire' the alien and incomprehensible Other -signifies the hostile and inhospitable environment, the incomprehensible distances separating the empire's edge from its heartland, the variegated perils threatening 'our' northern frontier and the threats of the indigenous Other.
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