Phillip England

This campaign will fund a series of tintype photographic portraits of people who saw Lake Pedder in Tasmania before this jewel in the wilderness was flooded for hydroelectricity almost half a century ago.

Lake Pedder was internationally recognised as an environmental treasure and it is considered to be the birthplace of the Australian conservation movement. My portraits will prompt people to contemplate what was lost and to focus on an important and uniquely Tasmanian story which continues to resonate today.

I never saw the original lake and its inundation has always haunted me because of the enormity of the loss and the human folly and carelessness it exemplifies. 

For those of us who did not see this magical place my portraits will connect us to the past via the eyes of those that did.

This connection is even more direct than conventional photographs because collodion tintypes are comprised of silver grains made by the very light rays that bounced off the subject in front of the camera. They are not prints from an intermediate negative or digital file.  And these eyes experienced the light of Lake Pedder.

The collodion tintype portraits in this exhibition will thereby embody only two degrees of separation between us and the lost Lake Pedder.

My project is an artistic homage to the lake and those who saw it.

The exhibition in Hobart, Tasmania in 2019 will be a collaboration with the prominent Tasmanian painter Luke Wagner who will exhibit a series of paintings inspired by the lake he visited as a boy. There will be an exhibition catalogue containing the portraits and paintings and quotes from the portrait subjects about their memories of the lake. 

Warmest regards,

Phillip  www.phillipengland.com

Reward Images

   "Penguin 2017"                                              "Bouquet"                                                        "Buddha"                  

  "Thylacine 2017"                                             "Late Bloomer, Dijon 2000"                         "Cradle Mountain"

 "Tidal Wave 2013"                                           "Sawfish 2016"                                              "Mt Morrison Landscape 2017"

"Mt Morrison above the fog, 2012"

The Pozible funds will cover the costs of producing and exhibiting the tintype portraits and producing a comprehensive exhibition catalogue as follows:

• materials: photographic plates and chemicals,  
• a stipend covering some of the time I spend on the project
• framing 
• mounting and publicising the exhibition.
• production & printing of an exhibition catalogue.
• Pozible commission(5%)