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01 Mount Russell Grain SiloMount Russell2023
ISO 641/320 secf/8.0180mm
Series · 6 prints
Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap
Mount Russell sits among dry grass and eucalypt on the North West Slopes of New South Wales, about 25 kilometres north-west of Inverell. The original concrete cell silos were built in 1934 as part of the NSW Government's bulk-wheat programme for the northern railway network. In 1955 a large scalloped bulk store, locally known as an opera house type, was added alongside. The Inverell branch line closed in 1987, and GrainCorp shut the facility in 2007.
Mount Russell was one node in a system designed overseas. From 1916, New South Wales moved to handle its wheat in bulk rather than in bags, to a blueprint drawn up by the Canadian firm John S Metcalfe and Company. Instead of sewing wheat into hessian sacks and stacking them by hand, the grain was poured loose into concrete towers and moved by machine. Mount Russell was named among the northern centres built under the 1933 to 1934 programme.
Its standing in the network showed in 1936. After a poor north-west harvest, nearly every silo in the northern system shut down, and only two kept running: Inverell, and Mount Russell. The government's Grain Elevators Board operated the network. It became the Grain Handling Authority in 1989, and in 1992 the wheat growers bought the business from the state, trading since as GrainCorp.
Mount Russell was a rail receival site, and the Inverell branch line through it closed in 1987. The silo was out of use by 2007. It holds no heritage protection of any kind: nothing on the State Heritage Register, nothing on the Inverell council's local schedule, not a single listed silo anywhere in the shire. A whole class of concrete buildings went up to move the country's wheat, and the register has no place for them.
The Sun (Sydney), 1936, via Trove, NSW Silos (Hal Pratt) and Mount Russell, New South Wales (Wikipedia)
Hand-signed limited editions, printed from the original RAW file. Editions run from 100 down to 25 and are not reissued once they sell through.
Made to order by Brett in Sydney, from the original RAW file. Each print is hand-signed and numbered before it ships.
Paper
Ilford Galerie cotton rag, 310 gsm. Acrylic on metallic gloss, 260 gsm.
Lead time
Unframed: 5 to 10 business days. Framed and acrylic: 10 to 20.
I'm often contacted by people who used to frequent the places I photographed. They share stories that enter the collections as additions or corrections. Sometimes they send their own photos from the same viewpoints, taken decades earlier.
The Guardian
On the LC archive.
One day I stopped at a vast abandoned factory I passed on my way home from work. There was a long section of fence missing. I wandered in, camera in hand, and that moment was the unofficial beginning of Lost Collective.
The Guardian
On the LC archive.
Leaving a secure job to work as an artist, trying to manage inconsistent income and tempering the self-doubt and self-criticism that came with it has been one of the most difficult things I've done.
The Guardian
On the LC archive.
