Stripped Cables

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 24mm · f/8.0 · 1.3s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A tangle of stripped electrical cables descends from a deteriorating ceiling. Copper strands are visible within the exposed wiring. Dust coats the surfaces. The cables hang loose, cut or pulled free from their conduits.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

See certificate sample →

Shipping Free shipping over $250. Ships worldwide, rates calculated at checkout.

Returns Damaged in transit? We replace it. Full policy →

Ships within 10 business days · signed & numbered

In situ

Stripped Cables at Balmain Leagues Club, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Stripped Cables at Balmain Leagues Club, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Stripped Cables at Balmain Leagues Club, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Stripped Cables
Series: Balmain Leagues Club
Catalogue: BLC-020
Process: Giclée
Captured: 16 October 2015
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1.3s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 24 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Copper strands glint in the dust. The electrical cables that once ran power through the Balmain Leagues Club have been stripped back to their cores, pulled loose from the ceiling and left hanging. It is one of the clearest signs of what happened to this building between its closure in 2010 and the time these photographs were made in 2015: a slow, methodical removal of anything with value. The club at 138 to 152 Victoria Road, Rozelle, opened in 1957, purpose-built on a prominent corner site at the intersection of Victoria Road and Darling Street, approximately four kilometres west of the Sydney CBD. It was a multi-level structure with a ballroom, main bar, gaming floor, and function rooms, built to serve the players, supporters, and community of the Balmain Tigers rugby league football club. The Tigers were one of nine foundation clubs in the first NSWRL season in 1908. The founding meeting was held at Balmain Town Hall on 23 January that year, chaired by John Storey, a boilermaker at Mort's Dock and Labor MLA for Balmain, who would later become Premier of NSW. The club operated for 53 years. It closed on 28 March 2010, after the NSW Government issued a notice to vacate the site for a proposed Sydney Metro transport project that was never built on this location. In 2009, the Tigers had already sold the property for $1 to a developer who assumed the club's debts. What followed was fifteen years of abandonment: three different developers, two rejected development applications, a government compulsory acquisition that was subsequently reversed, two fires, and a voluntary administration. By 2015, the interior showed the accumulated damage of five years without occupancy. The ceiling that once kept the building's power supply intact had been opened up and stripped. The copper was gone. These cables are what was left behind. The building was demolished in 2024 to 25. A mixed-use development including a new Balmain Leagues Club facility is under construction on the site, with completion expected in 2028.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Inside the former Balmain Leagues Club at Rozelle, stripped electrical cables hang from the ceiling, copper strands exposed where the wiring was pulled clear of its conduits. By the time these photographs were made in 2015, copper theft had gutted much of the building's electrical infrastructure. The club had been closed since 28 March 2010, vacated under a government notice connected to a transport project that was never built on the site. What remained was a building incrementally stripped of anything worth taking.

Brett Patman

The series

Balmain Leagues Club

2015 · 20 photographs

Balmain Leagues Club opened in 1957 on the corner of Victoria Road and Darling Street in Rozelle, supporting the Balmain Tigers, one of the NSW Rugby League's original nine clubs. The Tigers' premiership tally was, until the mid-1990s, second only to St George and South Sydney. The Australian Rugby League listed the site as a place of historical significance during the code's 2008 centenary. The club closed on 28 March 2010 under a NSW Government order to vacate for what was then the Sydney Metro project. The metro alignment was later changed and the site was not used. The building stood empty on the corner of Victoria Road for over a decade through a series of failed redevelopment attempts. Demolition and rebuild as the Rozelle Village mixed-use development began in 2023, with a new Wests Ashfield Leagues Club to return to the site.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.