Bordered by the shifting waters of Western Port in Victoria, French Island has no police station or utility services, and falls under no municipal jurisdiction. It is a place of quiet strangeness–its bucolic idealism shielded from mainland influence by a near-uniform body of water. Home to a small community of drifters and dreamers, those that live there possess a utilitarian pride that masks an uncomfortable wariness of the island’s fragile autonomy.
Having made several visits to the island as a child living in Melbourne’s suburbia, it has remained a place of childlike fascination for me. Returning to the island as an adult with a camera, The Moat examines the concept of isolation and the simultaneous allure and aversion to it that permeates rural Australian culture.
