Carmel Cosgrove – Artist, Melbourne

‘This Is Now’ by Carmel Cosgrove is a series of eleven artworks responding to the layered cultural and environmental history of Melbourne’s western suburbs, particularly around Stony Creek Backwash, the West Gate Bridge, and the Banool Ave Woollen Mill. Through mixed media, photography, projection, and digitally reworked imagery, Carmel explores landscapes shaped by industry, pollution, colonial introduction, and ongoing construction, alongside acts of resilience, revegetation and renewal.

Abandoned mills, mangroves, invasive and native plants, sheep, graffiti, sound walls, and industrial saturated colour become recurring motifs – elements that do not always belong yet persist. By erasing, suspending, and reworking imagery, Carmel reflects on displacement, ecological disturbance, and the uneasy balance between damage and recovery. These works invite reflection on how urban ecosystems absorb history, hold memory, and continue to transform despite neglect and disruption.