By Tyler Wright
Olinda-based photographer and environmental scientist Cathy Ronalds method of coping with the June 9 2021 storm event was to capture the changing landscape of the Dandenong Ranges in the days and weeks following.
Cathy could hear trees falling around her at the time, and while her home was not damaged, she was shocked to see the devastation to the environment.
“I’ve always really struggled to kind of put my connection with the environment into words. It just never feels adequate, so it was kind of natural to use my camera to do that,” Cathy said.
“I spend a lot of time walking through the bush, and to see all these places that I would normally walk through and find calm in – to see these places with no trees was just so devastating.”
Her works documenting the aftermath of the storm are now on display at Burrinja Cultural Centre’s art gallery with the collection titled ‘There Used To Be A Canopy Here’.
“Even though it was really hard to do at the time. It’s definitely helped me process it in a way… I felt as an artist we’re called to do things not just for us, but for other people as well.
It was a way of honoring what we experienced and [photography] is the perfect vehicle for that.”
So far, community members have thanked Cathy for capturing and expressing the damage.
“It’s really hard to put work like that out because some people had extremely traumatic experiences, and I felt that I couldn’t really show this work any sooner because that night is still really raw for a lot of people.
I don’t want to feel like I’m sensationalizing it in any way; that that would be the last thing that I’d want to do; I want to honour and validate the trauma that we all felt.”
‘There Used To Be A Canopy Here’ will be on display until Tuesday 30 August.
