Photograph by Lisa Roberts
A coupe is a specific area of forest identified for logging operations under VicForests’ Timber Release Plans. Despite the ecological catastrophe of the 2019-20 Summer bushfires which burnt through 1.25 million hectares of forest in East Gippsland VicForests has not revised its logging plans, in fact two additional Timber Release Plans were approved by the Board of the state-owned company in July and December 2020. More than 550 coupes and 20,000 hectares of forest including key unburnt refuges are scheduled for logging in East Gippsland.
The Coupe Portraits series was created by Louise Crisp and Lisa Roberts as part of Stony Creek Collective a collaborative multi-artform research project undertaken in the foothill forests of East Gippsland during 2020-21. The project was supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
Louise Crisp’s latest collection is Glide published by Puncher and Wattman (2021). A previous collection Yuiquimbiang (Cordite Books 2019) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and highly commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. Her work focuses on specific regional environments of south-eastern Australia and experiments with the formal possibilities of integrating poetics and environmental activism. Crisp lives in East Gippsland on the unceded lands of the Gunaikurnai nation.
Lisa Roberts is a photographer who chases bats, blossom, disappearing trees and epic landscapes. She lives and works in Gippsland on unceded Gunnai Kurnai Country. Her current project is The future is a big sky. A survey of old forests scheduled for logging and burning. Her recent exhibition was Flying Foxes and Disappearing Trees at East Gippsland Art Gallery.
