Ol haus stap antap na gold slip tambolo . . . Bulolo
If you drive two and a half hours south of Lae in Papua New Guinea, up into the mountains you'll get to Bulolo. At this cooler altitude, misty clouds gather in the valleys. In the thirties there was a big gold rush and humungous dredges were worked day and night moving through the alluvial gullies.
After the gold rush in the fifties, it became a timber town and they developed a kit house called the Bulolo House. It was nothing special but it was straightforward (an increasingly elusive quality) and these houses were built around the country. Some were built in Bulolo, and were sited along the ridges . . . the gullies still being under dormant mining leases.
Jungle growth has reclaimed the gullies over time and the town, when I first saw it in the late seventies, looked like a kind of Shangra La...it had an almost fairy tale quality. The pidgin title of the print tells the story for you to unravel.
Hand coloured 500 x 280
Edition of 40 $590