Monday, May 08, 2006

My Spiritual Homeland: the Toowoomba Dump

Last week I spent an exhilarating day amongst the inert industrial waste at Toowoomba Dump, 200km west of Brisbane. Why, you might ask? Well I had the great fortune to be one of the 14 Flash Trash artists to be selected for this fun outing and the subsequent challenge of creating artworks from our findings. And boy did i find some stuff. Lots.
Firstly, we saw this vermillion elephant. Driving along the Warrego Highway is not for the faint-hearted. They must be so far inland that the differences between a fish and an elephant are no longer important.

Do not stop the car.

Do not try the seafood.
We got to the inert waste facility which was no garden of eden but not too stinky either. I found a few odds and sods and then I saw this bit of polished granite sticking out of the compacted soil. I kicked myself for not bringing a spade but managed to dig out a bit of it to reveal a gravestone with names and dates 1902-1977. Loved and Remembered. Yeah right...

A healthy reminder of mortality and our insignificance!

And another one: 'God's Great'.
God is Great? Not quite. 'God's greatest gift:rememberance'. hmmm.

Finally selected some vinyl at the Lifeline dump store. Can't wait to get my saw into 'em.

We rolled back down the range, windows wide open to combat the deadly fumes coming from the back where something toxic we'd collected was outgassing with avengance. We stoped for toasted cheese onion and tomato sarnies at the 'Cruise Inn', bottom of the range. Yumm. Pure happiness. I felt renewed.


3 comments:

Florence Forrest said...

I love Elephant fish, they're the best kind...only if you keep them as pets you need a really large fish bowl, as they have extremely large memories they get so bored of swimming around and around the same patch they will try to escape by jumping out of the bowl...this is not good for the fish of course, which could explain why they are selling them at this road-side establishment?;)

Rebecca-the-Wrecker said...

Gosh, I should have realised and been more open minded and empathetic towards them. I guess that makes me a fishist.

Florence Forrest said...

don't feel so bad Bec, ignorance makes bigots of us all. Definition of bigot here is big+idiot. I feel like this a lot of the time...life is so hard:{ But perhaps it's even more difficult for elephant fish...hmmm, food for thought.