Air

Wolfgang Sievers Born 1913, Berlin, Germany; died 2007, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Wolfgang Sievers AO’s construction-site view Escalator site at Parliament Station 1977 celebrates the capacity of humankind to transform the Earth via industry. With its volcanic glow and dramatic vantage point, this subterranean landscape locates the viewer in a space carved from the solid bedrock of the city, deep beneath the promise of a clear blue sky. German-born and trained, Sievers migrated to Australia in 1938. He built a career photographing architectural and industrial images he felt would promote and enhance Australia’s standing in the world as an industrial nation capable of turning out precision work of the highest quality and to overcome ideas still widely held overseas that Australia was a strange place only fit for sheep, wheat, miners, kangaroos . . . 1 To champion modernity, Sievers would stage his shoots carefully, using cinematic tools, such as theatrical lighting and arranged figures, to give them a clarity and power conveying the immensity of human ingenuity at work. As people began to be replaced slowly by automation in the 1970s, however, the human dimension in Sievers’s work shifted from being an equal presence to one of subsumption into industry. Towards the end of his career, the artist began to reflect on his work as a photographer for many of Australia’s most noted industrial companies, stating: I am quite aware of the moral problems confronting a responsible photographer in industry . . . Should he use his skills to hide the terrible pollution and despoliation of our country — as I have? In creating beautiful images, I have glamorised industries which have often been heedless of their sacred trust to use resources wisely and take care in the interest of future generations. 2 JG 1 Helen Ennis, Wolfgang Sievers , National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2011, p.33. 2 Ennis, p.45. Wolfgang Sievers / Escalator site at Parliament Station, Melbourne 1977 147 Burn