Landscape Photographs I've been making...

Photo Credit: Sacha Kaplan-Shiff

This was the territory that Steinberg was considering for his Jewish place of refuge.  This is an arial photograph I made on July 31st on our way to Purnululu National Park. You'll notice that the land is lush and that agriculture is floushing, just as Steinberg predicted.

The landscape of the Kimberleys about one hour southwest of Kununurra.

Victorian College of the Arts Lecture Announcement, Melbourne Australia. Art Forum Series.

To view a larger image of this poster, please click here

Here we are at work on the Great Northern Highway near Wyndham, Western Australia. That's me taking the photo in the reflection of the ipad and Louis is holding the ipad. Steinberg thought that Wyndham might one day be the centre of his refuge for the Jews but it never was to be. The only industry there today is a shipping port for ore from the local mines. Kununurra has eclipsed Wyndham since it was founded in the early 60's after the construction of the Ord River diversion dam and the success of the irrigation scheme.

Durack Homestead

Here's Louis standing at the gate of the Durack Homestead. Michael Patrick Durack was going to sell his 7,000,000 acres to the Jews for their refugee settlement.

 The Durack Homestead was transplanted to higher ground when Lake Argyle was created. This is the largest man made lake in the southern hemisphere.

 Here is a family photo of the Durack patriarchs.

And finally here is the map of the Durack holdings I photographed in one of the rooms at the Durack Homestead. I used a different version of this same map as the ground on which to lay all of our digital models.

Evidence of Steinberg's Plan in Kununurra, Kimberley Western Australia

Today when leaving lunch at the Pump House restaurant (an actual pumping station in the day) we found evidence on this historic timeline ( see image above) of Steinberg's Kimberley Plan and specifically his vision to irrigate the Ord River Valley. A bit hard to read on this plexi-glass so I'll transcribe: "1939: The Freeland League, seeking land to resettle European Jews threatened by the rise of Nazism produced the first plan to realize the Ord irrigation scheme by damming the Ord River. The proposal is well received by the Western Australia government but not the Commonwealth."
This was our first day in Kununurra which is a town of about 6000 people and was not in existence during Steinberg's visit to these parts in 1939. However, as the plaque explains, Steinberg was prescient in proposing the irrigation of the Ord River and he made photos of the river on his tour which I've used in the Museum model for our VR world.  

Melech Ravitch's Star Theatre Revisited in Darwin Australia

Today we found the relics of the Star Theatre here in Darwin. This is the site that Melech Ravitch photographed in 1933 and the last of the 90 photographs that he took on his journey across Australia. If you look closely you can see the faint outline of a star on top of the  building that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Mogen David. Ravitch thought that this was a sign that a Jewish settlement was destined for the Australian Northern Territory. Ravitch predates Steinberg and soujourned to these parts via weeks and weeks of travel by train and mail truck. What a crazy poet he was. He was part of the Yiddish literary scene in Warsaw with contemporaries such I.B. Singer and helped to give him his start. We are making a virtual pavilion in his honour as part of Imaginary Jewish Homelands to mark his importance to the Kimberley plan. 

Darwin: Gateway to the Kimberleys - we're here for three days on our way to Kununurra

Lunch with Tony, Caroline Isaacson's Grandchild

Our time in Melbourne couldn't be more fulfilling. First we see Critchley Parker's diary and now we're having lunch with the donor, Caroline Isaacson's grandchild, Tony Isaacson. Tony offered to take us to see Critchley Parker's homestead an hour outside of Melbourne. Tony is an avid bush walker and has visited Critchley's grave site at Port Davey. If the weather is good then we aim to visit Port Davey on the Tasmanian leg of our journey in about 3 weeks from now.

Missing Diary FOUND! Progress on Tasmanian Leg of Project.

The entrance to the State Library of Victoria where the diary was recently donated

When the Kimberley Plan was stalled, Critchley Parker Jr. and Caroline Isaacson redirected Steinberg to Tasmania as a possibility for Jewish settlement and specifically the western part of the island at Port Davey.

Critchley Parker was a righteous gentile who was in love with a Jewish woman - the journalist Caroline Isaacson.  In January 1941, Parker organized an expedition to Port Davey with Steinberg, Isaacson and scientists to survey the land to see if it was viable for a Jewish refuge in order to save European Jews from the Holocaust.  Parker returned by himself the next year and he died on the site, leaving behind a diary with visions of Le'Corbusier buildings and a stadium to hold the Tasmian games. The diary was given to Caroline Isaacson after having been found next to his body, however, it went missing for decades.  

Just one week before our departure we were notified by the The State Library of Victoria's Greg Gerrand (who is the coordinator of collections) that Tony Isaacson (Caroline's grandson)had donated the missing diary upon the death of his father.

The State Library of Victoria had a transcription of the diary but the original had been thought to be lost. Just two weeks before leaving on our trip to Australia, Louis found out that both Peter Isaacson and his sister Joan had past away in April of this year.  This made us feel like our timing was off because it would have been nice to meet the children of Caroline Isaacson.  However, our timing couldn't haven't been better because it turned out that Peter Isaacson had the diary all along.   Tony's donation happened just a few days before our departure to Melbourne and then on our second day we were able to see it.  So instead of working with the transcript that was made in 1997 (as we had expected), we got to inspect the original! It sent chills through me to see Critchley's handwriting and knowing that these were his last words.

It's all about the Gear

Just bought two camera bags for the big trip as well as two 360 cameras. One for stills and one for video- can't wait to get to the Kimberleys to start making content for our VR worlds.