Artists: Matt Bonner with Tiffany Paterson

The Lara Soldiers Avenue is the oldest arborial community planting in Geelong and a solemn memorial to service and sacrifice. At Geelong After Dark a dawn ceremony among the trees is projected into the darkness of Geelong’s lanes, the flickering of a pre-digital technology reminding us that the past is present in the future and rituals are what bring us together. The Pines is conceived as a continuous flow of images rather than as conventional narrative, a poetic rendering of a time and place, a film about the act of rememberance.

The Pines film has been made with members of Lara RSL who participated as hosts of M~M 2014 Lara walking circle. The Pines film is the starting point to engaging with the RSL creatively with a view to them collaborating with an artist for M~M2016 as active participants and creators as well as hospitable hosts for the walking circle. As custodians of the Lara Soldier’s Avenue this seems an appropriate starting point to explore the significance and symbolism of the pine trees to the RSL members and as a distinctive part of the Lara landscape.

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