“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

T.S.Eliot

A somewhat different work to my normal creations, but then these are different times.

Our response in Australia to the COVID-19 global pandemic was to confine ourselves in our homes, to #stayathome. We were asked to physically disconnect from each other and from society. But we could exercise, and so I did.

Through the March to May lock down I cycled every street from Belmont to Adamstown between the Pacific Highway and the coast. And as our life made a faltering return to normal I travelled beyond, from channel to channel – Swansea to Newcastle.  A total of 840 km cycled, covering 800 streets and 32 suburbs, with 284,000 heart beats and 1 flat tyre. So far.

I have lived for nearly thirty years in the one house and, apart from a few familiar haunts, I don’t really know the place where I live. My life took me elsewhere, crossing my suburb and others but not getting to know them. This was an opportunity to better connect with where I live, at least as well as I could while keeping socially distant on a bicycle.

Note: the colour of the map is coded to heart rate.

Exhibited during Reconnected at the MAC, Museum of Art and Culture, Lake Macquarie, July-October 2020.

Acquired by the Museum of Art and Culture for inclusion in the permanent Lake Macquarie cultural collection.