We featured stylist, photographer and adventurer Kara Rosenlund's photographic prints last year as part of our Australian Art Series, and we are thrilled now to introduce her new Australia series, drawn from her brand new book Shelter - How Australians Live. It is a beautiful exploration of the 'worn loveliness' Kara documented in raw and real interiors and landscapes around the country. She is offering limited edition prints from the book, available in today's special sale event. Here we share an extract from Shelter.



I met photographer Bill Moseley and his wife, painter and printmaker Genevieve Carroll, in the town of Hill End, near Bathurst.

I had planned only to stay in the village for one day, but it turned into two, then three, then four; that’s the thing about Hill End, it will pull you in if you let it.



When I arrived, Bill and Genevieve’s home was a hive of rambling energy, with people lunching outside in the sun, ladling soup and breaking bread. Their home, or rather their cluster of small gold-rush cottages, was built in 1872, with each cottage having a separate and distinct purpose. The kitchen, bathroom, living, studio and guest cottages are sprinkled around their garden, quite close together.

We sat down in the kitchen cottage and Genevieve explained their journey. ‘Darling, we traded living on a 1919 wooden ferry on Sydney Harbour for this, which was an absolute ruin, an absolute ruin. Can you imagine it? We had to practically start from scratch.’



The small clusters of cottages hadn’t been lived in for more than fifty years. While they were restoring them, Bill and Genevieve would pull out bundles of old, blackened clothes, previously used for insulation, from the ceilings, all the while looking for signs of life in each of the cottages and trying to understand what they had been originally used for. The only way to discover the secrets of the cottages was to look for traces of activity – it was like an archaeological dig, uncovering accidental clues like dropped needles and overlooked pins.

Together with their friends in Hill End, Bill and Genevieve embarked on a slow journey to restore and conserve their cottages. Even though the gold rush has been mined out decades before, Hill End still possesses great wealth for those brave enough to seek out a slower and more meaningful life.



Extract from Shelter - How Australians Live by Kara Rosenlund, published by Lantern (RRP $59.99)

Follow Kara on Instagram @kararosenlund