The Ballarat International Foto Biennale has plunged into the extensive archives of Central Highland Water to create an historic photographic exhibition for this year's biennale.
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A joint venture between the two bodies has allowed conservator and curator Cash Brown to work her way through the thousands of images stored by Central Highlands Water, dating from the early days of the Ballarat Water Board in the 1860s and 1870s through the Board of Commissioners to the present day.
"I've gone through... all of them," says Cash Brown amusedly.
"I've selected about 350 that have the potential to be included in the exhibition; the oldest that we've found are from 1872 and range up to the digital era. Interestingly many of them are press photographs from The Courier that were purchased by the organisation over the years when they appeared."
Many of the images depict workers in situations that occupational health and safety bodies would have a conniption over today: men high up on scaffolds with no safety gear whatsoever; a worker scaling a ladder inside a massive water tower; another cement coating a waterpipe by being dragged through it behind a machine (surely a claustrophobic nightmare); others digging tunnels through clay with metres of overlaying load.
Managing director at CHW Paul O'Donohue says it's important to be able to present the evolving story of water in the city.
"After gold mining was established, the people in Ballarat were saying they needed a stable, reliable supply too, and that's where it started."
Cash Brown says the archive is a vital record of the life of Ballarat, and has its own artistic worth as well.
"A lot of these images are beautiful images in their own right," Ms Brown says.
"As a curator, there are a whole heap of amazing different stories and histories that we can tell, that you might never normally know about, that show the remarkable economic and environmental sustainability practices that have gone on with this organisation, right back to 1862.
"We have about 30 stories, potted histories matched to actual photographs," said Cash Brown.
- To avoid confusion, BIFB is not associated with failed festival BOAA.