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CELESTIAL SPACES: PHOTOGRAPHS OF FORMER CHINESE GOLD MINING SITES IN THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS OF AUSTRALIA BY DENISE FERRIS. Celestial Spaces is a series of ten large-scale paired photographs or 'diptychs'. The first photograph in each diptych was taken on the sites where, in the 1860s, several hundred Chinese goldminers lived and worked in Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains. The partner photographs show shards of ceramic bowls, pipes, cups and pots that have been unearthed at Kiandra over two digs by ANU archaeology students and staff. "While my photographs acknowledge the Chinese miners' presence and contribution to Kiandra's place in history, my intention is that they also display photography's incapacity to deliver a deeper understanding of the miners' lives," says Ferris, a Senior Lecturer in Photography at the ANU School of Art. "Spaces means just that: gaps in interpretation and only a semblance of knowledge. Photographs may not always hold the answers, but they are brilliant at posing questions."

