Cockatoo Island is like Peter Pan’s Never Never Land for a photographer who likes industrial and historical decay. It’s a wonderland of rusted colour. Machines smeared with grease from a thousand men’s hands. Sandstone hewed by convicts. An apocalyptic museum of towering H.G. Wells tripods and cranes. I was entranced the minute I stepped off the ferry.
The first thing I noticed was the lack of graffiti, thanks to its girt by sea isolation. It’s a historical layer cake that served as the heart of Sydney Harbour's ship building since 1850. It has functioned as a convict gaol and contains on its plateau the only remaining convict public works complex in the state. It was an aqueous chastity belt for wayward girls, often casting their eyes to the anchored ship off shore in which their male counter parts where sequestered. It was the island prison that bushranger Captain Thunderbolt made his Clint Eastwood Alcatraz-like escape from. After the 1942 fall of Singapore and the loss of its shipyard facilities, the Cockatoo Island’s dry dock became the hottest place in the Southern Hemisphere. Over 20 ships were built there during the war. More than a thousand men and women have stepped upon its shore with axe and hammer and book and welder in hand. The remnants left behind will sing to you if you’ll just stand still long enough.
Neglected like a drunken old Uncle at Christmas, it was abandoned in 1992 and lay dormant until an extraordinary piece of good governing and luck gave the island back to the people in 2006. It is currently controlled by the Sydney Harbour Trust, who is endevouring to bring the people back to the island.
Now it serves as witness to its historic past and a place for camping, concerts and recreation. The 2008 Sydney Biennale exhibited in the derelict buildings to maximum effect, with the bonus being people saw the art but discovered an island. I made nine trips on the Biennale’s efficiently run free ferry service and photographed the island in panoramic format, using multiple exposures to capture the fading saturated history. The more clouds in the sky the happier I was. The brooding mecha and massive goblin halls were not places of sunshine. They were homes for spark and song and beer and hammer. By documenting the ghosts of the island with new and roguish techniques I hope to bring a very old and deeply satisfying world back to life.
That’s the Cockatoo Island Project.
Patrick Boland
January 2009
Visit the official Cockatoo Island website!