The Book
The Book
Written in Stone is a journey.
I invite you to come with me as
I show you the secrets of a well-known coastline. I can point to the cracks and lines that tell the story of how Australia became an island.
On display are an impressive array of rock forms that ask us to look deeper and reflect on our connection to landscape. Through this deep looking, watching and taking note of the minute to the vast, the strange to the subtle we see how the rocks tell a story.
This is a book, which inspires
you to see nature and the self from a new vantage point.
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The story that we will follow is 135 million years old. It is the work of oceans, of deep subterranean pressures and of time, great deep time. Within which continents have formed and broken apart, dinosaurs have died out and mountains have been built where oceans had moments before stretched wide.
We will wander the length of the Great Ocean Road, from the fossil filled cliffs of Torquay, through the twisting and crackling bush of the Otways to the expanse of the Port Campbell plains. Each place that we stop, marked out in maps and photographed, holds a piece of the puzzle. As we go we will gather up these reflections and create a story of this landscape.
The second print run of Written in Stone has arrived!
Great Ocean Road
Great Ocean Road
The road that we will take stretches from
Torquay to Warrnambool along the south-eastern coastline
of Victoria, Australia.
Reading the landscape
Reading the landscape
The land beneath is a vast puzzle...
The colours, lines, textures and patterns we find in rocks are all here as a result of time and process acting on and shaping the landscape.
Each unique moment is captured. This book is an invitation to
learn how to read these moments in landscape.
The book is split into three sections:
Torquay to Aireys Inlet
Lorne to Castle Cove
Moonlight Head to Warrnambool
Each section contains maps, diagrams, sketches and photographs
to help you see the story of the landscape. Together they chart
a 95 million year journey from Gondwana to Australia.
Photography
Photography
ALL PHOTOGRAPHY © PHILOMENA MANIFOLD
Bio
Bio
I am a writer/image maker and explorer of wild places. My work focuses on the meeting point between science and art. I work in the genres of non-fiction, nature writing and theatre. I have spent the past nine years living between Melbourne and the Southwest Victorian coast photographing, researching, writing and sketching the coastline. The goal: “Written in Stone” a high quality art book exploring the geological stories of the region.
I work part time in petrophysics at Melbourne University and at the Stork Theatre. I spend the rest of my time writing and dancing!
I have exhibited my photography in 2009 and 2010. At the moment I have work on websites Yoga Republic and Stork Theatre and have had promotional photography in The Age. In 2008 I co-wrote a teacher training manual on groundwater for Teachers Earth Science Education Program and in 2010 I had maps and diagrams published in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (v.57, 2010) as part of my work for the Department of Primary Industries.
My vision is to connect people to landscape.
This book is a homage to the land that meets the ocean.
A wild place to be treasured.
– PHILOMENA MANIFOLD
Outlets
Outlets
Sample Pages
Works in progress
Sample Pages
Works in progress
“We are often unaware that beneath our feet, woven into the very fabric of the land, are a hundred thousand stories. Between these pages you will see that the layers of rock, sand, and cemented dune – eroded and muted as they are – hold evidence of a journey. From the briefest moment of an eddy casting sand in a stream to the gradual and imperceptible shifting of continents, the land reveals its wanderings.
Through this collection of photos, reflections, and explanations of geological processes, a new vantage point on the coastline of the Great Ocean Road will appear. This book will help you translate the inscriptions and markings in each stone. It will give you the ability to look at a mountain, a valley, or a simple road cutting and to see through time, through layers of rock, to the beginning of things. Take this book and use it as a looking glass: a prism through which you may experience the rocks beneath your feet.”
I started out on this project 8 years ago. It has been an amazing journey. I have spent most of my time taking photos, sketching outcrops, making maps, researching and writing the text and scrambling over boulders and down sinkholes. If you are interested in this project please add your name to the mailing list or like the book on Facebook.
– Philomena Manifold
Prints
Prints
Limited edition prints are now available: 10'x10' on Canson Print Making Rag paper. Please contact me below for more information.
Locations: Apollo Bay, Cliff's east of Point Ronald, Boulder Beach, Devil's Kitchen and Soapy Rocks!