Background: Photographing the Mallee
The Photographing the Mallee project consists of two stages.
The first stage, known as Mallee Routes, began in early 2017. It was a collaborative 3 year project between 2017-2020 by three photographers–Eric Algra, Gilbert Roe and Gary Sauer-Thompson. They came together to photograph the Murray Mallee, Wimmera Mallee and the NSW Mallee. Eric Algra came up with the title of Mallee Routes. Gary Sauer-Thompson administered and hosted the website, wrote the blog, and produced 2 photobooks during this collaborative stage.
The yearly exhibitions of the first stage of the Mallee Routes were: 2017 at the Atkins Lab in Adelaide, South Australia; 2018 at the Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery in Swan Hill, Victoria; 2019/2020 at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery in Murray Bridge, South Australia. Two additional photographers—Stuart Murdoch and Lars Heldmann—participated in the final collaborative Mallee Routes exhibition at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery.
The collaborative stage finished in 2020. The second stage of the Photographing the Mallee project has a new website and it is a solo project by Gary Sauer-Thompson. This stage started in 2020, and it explores three interrelated themes: absent history, space/place and unknown futures. The Covid-19 pandemic and closed state borders limited the travelling in 2020 to South Australia.