AIR: Charles Page

Charles Page
Australia b.1946

From ‘Journeys north’ portfolio:
Blackwater mine 1986
Mount Isa mine 1986
Mount Isa mine 1986
Saraji mine 1986
Saraji mine 1986
Saraji mine 1986
Gelatin silver photographs on paper
Dimensions vary

Purchased 1987 with the financial assistance of the Australian Bicentennial Authority to commemorate Australia’s Bicentenary in 1988

Charles Page observed the impact of mining and noted it ‘changed the face of the State more than anything else’. In 1986 he travelled to central, western and northern Queensland to document the industry and people whose work has contributed much to our economy and standard of living.

An installation view of six photographs on a gallery wall, with a visitor looking on.

Photographs from Charles Page’s ‘Journeys north’ portfolio installed at GOMA for ‘Air’, February 2023 / © Charles Page / Photographs: C Callistemon, QAGOMA

In Page’s photographs we see scarred landscapes with towering mining infrastructure, coal-haulage trucks working through the night and a sunlit coal-handling plant that casts dramatic shadows. Children on poolside bleachers are framed by smelter stacks from which billowing emissions reach into the sky. A miner’s easy smile captures the camaraderie of those working deep underground.

Page was one of six photographers invited to document community life in Queensland in the late 1980s to commemorate Australia’s Bicentenary. In these images, disorienting vantage points and the complex interplay of people and industrial forms combine to suggest the tensions between industry, community and the environment.