Copy This. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. by Liz Mahood, Document://Bimblebox opening night, photo by Mel de Ruyter
I arrive at Bimblebox Nature Refuge heavy with memories of long hot days working cattle. Memories from another time, another place, a similar landscape. It takes days before I see her subtle beauty, days before my senses recalibrate and I am truly here. This landscape doesn’t demand your attention with big statements of bold beauty and wild excitement. This is a subtle landscape, an unassuming landscape. The beauty is only revealed to those prepared to suspend the want of control and disengage from the attachment to time constraints. Those who are willing to quiet the noise in their minds and allow nature to be heard. I felt very privileged to have this opportunity to be here, to escape the distractions of everyday urban life and connect with the land and in doing so connect with myself.
Bimblebox Nature Refuge tells many stories. The story of the secret interconnected world of nature where every plant and every animal has a story within the big story. The stories of the people who saw this environment as valuable and worthy of preservation. The story of how the integrity of an agreement seemingly means little to the powers that be when a dollar is to be made. A story of conflicting values. A story suggesting connection with the spirit of the land and practising respect for mother earth are not part of our language. A story suggesting the energetic integrity of the land has no value in our current system.
“Copy This” is a comment on these issues and our inadequacy in righting our mistakes. There is a general attitude in the resources industry to do what needs to be done and worry about the consequences later.
Rehabilitation? A copy of the landscape is never going to have in place the essential history of the experiences of that landscape as it was formed and shaped by the elements over millennia.
The data has a life of it’s own on paper….but can it translate into the multi-dimensional experience we call reality?
Bimblebox Art Project 
Liz, I wholeheartedly endorse your description of Bimblebox as having a subtle beauty. Too many people can think only of massive waterfalls, rivers, cliffs etc. when they look at our Australian landscape. They miss all the wonderful subtleties of nature such as a stick case catepillar disguising itself with pieces of its host plant, the stars appearing so bright and close that you feel sure that you can pick them out of the sky. Bimblebox is just as you describe it so you have really felt its true presence.