Nature in Flux

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Australian Art Review Magazine nature in flux  Jan/Feb 2012.  When water comes to the desert, ancient, dry rivers run white...

When water comes to the desert, ancient, dry rivers run white; an inland sea turns red; green water surges across rusted earth and salt flat. Nature puts on a show. Transformed into unaccustomed colour, the stark and arid land fills with drama, mystery, reawakening. The dead heart comes alive. Seeds that have been dormant burst into plants that even the Aboriginal custodians struggle to recognise, and the once desiccated silence is punctuated by raucous water birds.
In the past four years an immeasurable, unprecedented amount of water has arrived in Lake Eyre basin. Unleashing cyclones and floods, the La Niña weather pattern sends water into defunct northern river systems flowing south, filling the central basin and creating vast washes of yellow and purple in what Sydney photographer Peter Elfes describes as “a desert cocktail of lime,