A HI-JACKING

2014
Site: Great Ocean Road, Victoria
Program: Marker Chapel, Visitor and Observation center, 

 

In the summer of 1922, the name of a group of nine 50-meter tall limestone stacks located off the Australian Coast of Victoria, which up to that point had been known as the Sow and Piglets, was changed to that of the Twelve Apostles. The geological beauty of the place is so intense, that it seems a rather diminutive attempt that its name and identity had to be coerced and sided with spirituality so as to increase tourism traffic. A hijacking of sorts had occurred.

For whatever reasons prompted the decision, the new name-givers seemed to neglect the temporality of the placed they had just christened, and how that ephemerality will eventually vanquish their fragile creation.

Forward in time, the year 2005 witnessed the collapse of one of the Apostles. One of the tallest limestone stacks submitted to erosion from the waves and crumbled to the beach side below. Now only 8 remained. At the current rate of erosion, by the year 3255 there will not be a single original apostle in site. With this fateful prediction, the religiosity that had been pressured into the location will also be eliminated.

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