After more than a decade away from Australia, I travelled to photograph the Goldfields region of Western Australia, a place that runs on extraction. Gold, nickel, and lithium beneath the red dirt have drawn people here for over a century, and the economy is still driven by mining. Corporate operations work alongside independent prospectors on small private claims, both chasing wealth.. Native and domestic animals move through the same spaces as the machinery and tailings, seemingly unfazed by the industry around them.

I spent time with the people who make up this world: Aboriginal elders whose connection to this land predates the rush by tens of thousands of years, and miners who have arrived from the other side of the world looking for work. I was given access to active gold mines and the chance to connect with the local Indigenous community — two perspectives on the same country that rarely meet in the same frame.

The Goldfields draws people from across Australia and beyond; many arrive as strangers and stay for years. The region operates on its own terms, shaped by distance, physical labour, and the rhythm of shift work. I am not Australian by birth, but I have lived in the country twice. The series interweaves portraiture, landscape, and documentary detail. These photos are the first phase of an ongoing project, and I will return to work on it later this year.

-The photographs in this project were captured on the unceded traditional lands of the Marlinyu Ghoorlie and Nyalpa Pirniku peoples. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and appreciate the local community permissions granted to document this Country.