Story Info

Albrecht
Glenn Albrecht
Duns Creek, NSW, Australia
2017

Story & Experience

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).

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).

Duns Creek, NSW, Australia

RECENT STORIES

  • Beck 2010

For the Gulf Coast

Our beaches are being bombarded almost daily since the end of the first week of the sinking of the Deep Water Horizon with gatherings of people or all stripes: protests, prayer groups, volunteers, rallies for [...]

  • 2023 Kadonneiden Lajien Muistopäivä Helsinki

Remembrance Day for Lost Species in Helsinki 2023

On November 30th, there was first a session organized by the Finnish social and health sector project about eco-anxiety and eco-emotions (www.ymparistoahdistus.fi). This “morning coffee roundtable”, a hybrid event, focused this time on ecological grief [...]

  • 9442542D 86F2 44DB B000 C8EBDAB10152

Ashdown Forest

Ashdown Forest is an area of natural beauty in West Sussex, England. It is also one of the very few remaining areas of extensive lowland heath left in Europe. This rare and threatened landscape is [...]

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places.