SPIRIT AND PLACE (ON ROUTE 66)

A journey to find the Other Australia

During the 1980s and 1990s, while working on two major civic commissions as artist-curator-in-residence to northern Australia’s beef industry and the Capricornia region of Queensland, photographer Paul J. Ryan undertook over 100,000 kilometres of road trips based in Rockhampton. His journeys traced the western districts — “out there,” beyond the edges of towns — from the coast to the heart of the nation. These travels echoed the songs, films, and culture of movement and freedom of America's iconic Route 66 which lent its name, temporarily to Australia's Northern Highway.