Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya

Luminescent trees, volcanoes and desert landscapes are transformed into a dazzling palette of orange shades in this wordless short film. Malena Szlam has edited the overlapping images in her 16mm camera, creating multiple exposures of stunning volcanic landscapes which alternate between barren and green.

Layer by layer, she evokes the history of Mount Beerwah, the Bunya Mountains and the Gondwana Rainforests in the Eastern Highlands of Australia, illuminated by the afterglow of the massive eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano in 2022.

The shifting images paint imaginary maps, an alternative cartography of time on a geological scale: from catastrophic fractures in tectonic plates to the formation of mountains over millions of years. Field recordings of the earth’s vibrations and murmurings form the soundscape, composed by the Australian artist Lawrence English.