Open Source #20: Matt Dunne
9 February - 28 February 2022
This month’s Open Source Artist is Matt Dunne, a photographer and writer obsessed with the relationship between the human world and the natural world. Using archives and community research as starting points, Matt’s work acts as a form of public grieving, exploring the psychology of extinction, biological collapse and the legacy of selfishness. Ultimately, his photography asks ‘why do we kill what we so clearly need?’.
In 2017, a man claimed to have killed over 400 Wedge-Tailed Eagles at the instruction of his employer. After an investigation and lengthy court proceedings, evidence of only 136 dead Eagles was found. The man received 11 days in jail, his boss received a fine. What’s shocking is how common this act – deliberately killing Wedge Tailed Eagles – is in the state of Victoria. Over the last two years, I’ve been working on uncovering similar crimes – finding places and stories of people have committed this crime and the problematic relationship modern Australia still has with native wildlife, even for animals that are loved, emblematic and deeply significant.
All landscapes shown in this project are locations where an Eagle was deliberately killed.
The work will be published as a book by VOID in 2022.
This month’s Open Source Artist is Matt Dunne, a photographer and writer obsessed with the relationship between the human world and the natural world. Using archives and community research as starting points, Matt’s work acts as a form of public grieving, exploring the psychology of extinction, biological collapse and the legacy of selfishness. Ultimately, his photography asks ‘why do we kill what we so clearly need?’.
In 2017, a man claimed to have killed over 400 Wedge-Tailed Eagles at the instruction of his employer. After an investigation and lengthy court proceedings, evidence of only 136 dead Eagles was found. The man received 11 days in jail, his boss received a fine. What’s shocking is how common this act – deliberately killing Wedge Tailed Eagles – is in the state of Victoria. Over the last two years, I’ve been working on uncovering similar crimes – finding places and stories of people have committed this crime and the problematic relationship modern Australia still has with native wildlife, even for animals that are loved, emblematic and deeply significant.
All landscapes shown in this project are locations where an Eagle was deliberately killed.
The work will be published as a book by VOID in 2022.
