Fulcrum.

By Aimee Frodsham
Aimee Frodsham, Canberra Glassworks

Walgalu/Wolgalu/Wolgal Country is located at the headwaters of the Murrumbidgee and Tumut rivers, stretching from Kiandra in the north to Tintaldra in the south. This land, rich in cultural significance, has been home to the Walgalu people for tens of thousands of years. Their connection to the rivers, mountains, and surrounding landscapes is deep and enduring. 

 

In 1949, the Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme began, known as Australia’s largest and most complex engineering project. The construction of the 16 dams, 145 kilometres of tunnels, 80 kilometres of aqueducts, and seven power stations resulted in the flooding of large areas of land, displacing Aboriginal groups from their traditional lands. Sacred sites and places of critical natural resources were submerged or destroyed. 

 

Today, Australia has 15 major hydro-electric schemes generating electricity, the earliest being the Launceston Hydro-Electric Power Station, which began operations in 1895. The most recent addition is the Cotter Dam in the ACT, which became operational in 2000, while the Snowy 2.0 project is still under development and is expected to be operational by 2028. Hydroelectric power accounts for approximately 20% of Australia’s renewable electricity, contributing about 6% of the nation’s total electricity generation. The broader energy mix in Australia includes solar at 16%, wind at 12%, hydro at 6%, and other renewables at 1%. Fossil fuels dominate the electricity generation landscape, with coal contributing 46%, natural gas 17%, and oil 2%. 

 

As Australia strives to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, complex and overlooked moral and ethical considerations emerge, which Walgalu/Wiradjuri artist Aidan Hartshorn is bringing into focus through his practice. His work challenges us to critically examine the environmental impacts of energy production, including renewable energy, and the profound consequences for communities that are overlooked. Once again, the needs of a marginalised community are at risk of being sidelined in the pursuit of progress, raising important questions about cultural preservation, land rights, and the actual cost of technological advancement. 

 

The Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme is a fulcrum, a pivotal point where environmental, cultural, and social transformations collide. Through his work, Hartshorn confronts the legacy of displacement, the erosion of culture, and the aftermath of this massive project. He looks at the past, present, and future to fully understand the impact. Hartshorn recognises how we measure and reflect time, noting three distinct areas of categorisation: 
(1) pre-colonised history – where culture is placed
(2) colonised history – where Snowy Mountains history sits
(3) today – where sustainability and environmental needs sit

 

Yet, his work strives to dismantle this categorisation. His work resists being reduced to an artefact of the past or confined within the museum narratives that frame history. Instead, it exists as a living, breathing presence, challenging and redefining the boundaries of cultural survival and expression, demanding its place in today’s world. 

 

In Fulcrum, Hartshorn spells out the deep and enduring losses felt within his community. He seeks to understand the impacts of sovereignty, history, environment, and culture on his identity while navigating the complexities of today’s world. The desire for a more sustainable and environmentally conscious future is not lost on him, and the irony of this struggle is evident in his work. The use of glass and lighting evoke the struggle to comprehend the level of destruction, commercialisation, and degradation of his Country. Hartshorn embeds concepts taken from the vast and complex hydro systems within the work. For example, 297m³/s (297 cubic meters per second) of water is required to power a neon tube. This is used as an artwork title and the calculation becomes a metaphor for the scale of environmental and cultural losses his community endures in the relentless pursuit of progress, where water is turned into a metric construct for mass consumption. 

 

The First Peoples of the Tumut and Brungle Ranges are deeply connected to the rivers, streams, and waterways that have shaped their culture; it is not a mere metric. They depended on the freshwater environment for sustenance, spiritual practices, and cultural activities like stone tool making, weaving yabby and fish traps, and crafting bark canoes. Significant objects are lost to them due to being submerged or locked away in museums. Still, Hartshorn actively researches techniques by accessing these objects in museum repositories or using sonar to retrieve information about those submerged. He transforms this research into new artworks, reconstructing objects with contemporary materials to preserve vital knowledge in toolmaking, teaching, and storytelling. Using a museum accession numbering system or GPS coordinates, he titles works 2025.03.001-008, indicating the collection’s origin from 2025, the third artwork in the exhibition, and the eight components it contains. The artwork titles form a modern codex, incorporating fictional collection systems, water pressure data, electrical measurements, and satellite location data. Data is often presented as fact or truth, leaving little room for questioning. In Hartshorn’s work, however, he challenges that assumption, inviting a deeper exploration of established truths and offering the opportunity to consider the other side of the story. 

Four generations of Hartshorn’s family have now lived within this transformed landscape. While cultural knowledge has been protected as much as possible, the loss compounded over four generations is profound. When this flow of knowledge is interrupted, it creates gaps, leaving multiple generations without access to the traditions that shape their cultural identities. This is true for the Murrin (traditional stringybark canoes), which Hartshorn uses as key elements within his installation work. These canoes are crafted using skills passed down through generations and taught to him by his father, Shane Herrington. Both share and trial different techniques and processes, working side-by-side as an act of re-learning, to find and fill in those missing gaps in their knowledge. Hartshorn is mindful of using these beautifully crafted canoes, ensuring that traditional skills are woven into contemporary installation work. He highlights that these skills are part of a living culture that is still actively practised and evolving within the present. 

 

Another significant element in his practice is Wee Jasper bluestone, which he pairs with contemporary neon lighting. By integrating materials such as glass, neon, aluminium and digital printing, Hartshorn is blending traditional and modern processes to create a dialogue between past and present, ensuring that culture and stories are not frozen in time. 

Glass, both a resource and an energy-intensive material, is used to comment on the forces of industrialisation that reshaped the land, while offering a medium through which contemporary stories are told. It is a naturally formed material as obsidian and an industrialised material mined from silica. Its transparency evokes water, an elemental force that once flowed freely in the area. The use of neon within the works symbolises and physically uses electricity. Neon requires high voltage (between 6,000 to 15,000 volts) to operate. A transformer is used to step up the voltage from a standard 240-volt power source, increasing the force of electricity required to ionise the gas inside the tube. The electricity itself is an integral part of these works. This is evident and forms part of the codex of titles – Fulcrum 15000 V

 

In a recent series of cultural development sessions delivered for this exhibition, Hartshorn emphasised the history of disrupted connection on his ancestral land, the most understandable of which was the differing value systems that emerged during the gold rush of the mid-1800s. For white settlers, gold held immense value, but for Indigenous people, it was not essential. Similarly, materials like hard basalt riverstones and Wee Jasper bluestone, vital for tool making and trade, hold great worth within Indigenous communities, but were disregarded by settlers or exploited as abundant resource. The exploitation of resources during this period laid the foundation for larger projects, such as the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. Sharing this knowledge weighs heavily on Hartshorn, which was evident throughout the session and this exhibition. 

 

In reflecting on the profound impact of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, Hartshorn’s work stands as a testament to his family’s resilience and ongoing struggle. The interruption of cultural knowledge has left deep, lasting gaps, yet Hartshorn’s efforts to reclaim and reinterpret this knowledge through contemporary practice offer a hopeful path forward centred around truth-telling. This exhibition explores the complex relationship between cultural endurance and environmental transformation and highlights the importance of reconnecting with the past while embracing the present and recognising culture as continuing within a contemporary context. 

 

This exhibition offers viewers the opportunity for an incredibly transformative experience, providing new insights into the balance between loss and regeneration. It deepens understanding and reshapes perspectives on the intersection of culture, identity, and land, highlighting the vital role art plays in this ongoing dialogue.