Lake Ballard caught me in a reflective and emboldened mood. I had been starting to think that I should write a wind up parry-graph to mark the end of my road trip and Lake Ballard was just the place to get the contemplative juices flowing. We’re in very dry country here, which averages around 11 inches of annual rainfall. But when a cyclone hits, the lake is transformed: Banded Stilts arrive before the rain stops falling, tiny shrimp that have lain dormant in the sand go into reproductive over-drive and bird breeding is on for young and old. It is hard to imagine the lake as an inland sea when the vision before me was of an expansive dry land, shimmering heat waves and mirages of water on the horizon. Suffice to say the lake is visually spectacular. But the photogenic qualities leap skyward when you add in the ‘Inside Australia’ sculpture display, which is the work of British sculptor, Anthony Gormley. The work comprises 51 figures, derived from local Menzies residents, which are dotted across the western section of the lake. On first inspection at dusk my conclusion was that – yes there were men, women and children – the figures were very similar. But come morning, the sun and shadows reveal more differences in the features and posture. As always, you have to slow down and take more notice. I contemplated a scattered but united community: each one facing a different direction and bringing different qualities to the whole. In some ways this has been a theme of my trip: the small/detail amongst large/landscape. Of course, the originator of the display has other perspectives of ‘antennae in space’ and ‘limits’ of our perception: the horizon’ etc. I didn’t count as I travelled to the scattered figures and I possibly saw three-quarters of the full set. All rather wonderful and thought provoking. I just felt I needed to become 52, which indeed I am.
parrygraphs 