I found this year’s Earth Exchange very difficult. My wounded place was an area of my local bushland that has been used (abused) as a rubbish dump. The objects within the dump were dirty, wet and broken. It was hard to see anything of potential beauty in all the mess. Also, I did not want to ‘tidy up’ the area since the whole point was to highlight the contrast between the beautiful bushland and the human dump. I found some objects that could, with a stretch of the imagination, have the appearance of a phoenix-like peacock rad-bird trying to leave the scene. Its head is the leg from an old metal table, there is a glimpse of iridescent blue from a plant pot, its body and wings come from the cover of a shade-stand and there are wing feathers that are formed from discarded objects such as a can of engine degreaser, beer cans, McDonald’s detritus and soft-drink plastic. There is a broken children’s swing hanging over the scene that could be the outline of a tail (minus its glory).