The Felling

Dawn Felicia Knox

The Felling tells the story of one plot of land beginning three hundred and twenty million years ago when it was a primordial swamp, through the industrial revolution when it was a working mine and now as it sits a graffitied waste ground. The work is comprised of photographs made of paleobotany fossils taken from the mine and archival images of the working pit which were projected onto the derelict site. The images are threaded together with the narrative of the mining disaster of 1812 that took the lives of to the 92 men and boys spurring the production of the safety lamp.

The fossils photographed form part of Hutton’s Fossil Collection which were previously displayed in the Lit and Phil Museum and now residing at the Great North Museum and its archive stores.

This project was created with support from the Mining Institute and formed part of the bicentenary commemoration of the Felling Mining Disaster.