The Voice of the Maribyrnong
SCREENWORKS

The Voice of the Maribyrnong
2025, Single channel 4k video, 5:03 looped
Archival material courtesy of Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West unless specified. Image of ‘Stone masons at work, Standard Quarries, Footscray’ appearing at 03:20 and 03:39 sourced from State Library Victoria.

Located on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation, the Maribyrnong River has been impacted by the violent industrial practices of colonial settlers. Following settlement, the Maribyrnong River was used as both a transport route and a drain for waste products discarded from factories. Bluestone was extracted from quarries surrounding the river, and used to construct buildings such as gunpowder magazines that advanced colonial violence. Early photographs of the Maribyrnong River reflect imperial perspectives, framing it as either an idyllic pastoral landscape or as a source for industrial growth.

The Voice of the Maribyrnong uses videography, photography and sound to interrogate colonial histories of the Maribyrnong River and its tributaries, reframing the river as a living entity rather than a resource for industrial advancement. Using methods that aim to ‘make with’ the Maribyrnong River such as underwater videography through which the river guides the camera’s motion, the artist seeks to emphasise the river’s agency and explore the potential for collaboration with water bodies. Punctuated by archival and contemporary photographs, the work aims to reveal the settler-colonial history of the Maribyrnong River while drawing attention to the violent imperial history of landscape photography.

About the Artist: 
Elijah is a multidisciplinary artist living and creating on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm (Melbourne). Through an embodied practice of walking, listening, and close observation, he creates recordings, photographs and video works that examine the relationships between human and ecological environments. Challenging human-centred understandings of ecosystems, his practice investigates ways to ‘make with’ sites by engaging land and waterways as active collaborators. Elijah graduated with a Master of Photography at RMIT University, and was awarded the NAVA Ignition Award for Highest Performing in Professional Practice, the Brunswick Print Lab Prize and the Vice-Chancellor’s List for Academic Excellence Award. He was also selected to participate in the RMIT Galleries Graduate Residency. Elijah has exhibited photographic works both locally and internationally, most recently at the Pingyao International Festival of Photography in China and the RMIT University School of Art Graduate Exhibition in Naarm.