About the Author

Rees Quilford reflecting and writing in the dunes of the Bunurong Coast.

I name is Rees Quilford. I am a fifth-generation settler of Welsh-Irish descent. I am a father, a partner, a writer, a maker and a PhD student. I was born to, and live on, the unceded lands of the Bunurong/Boonwurrung on the southeast Victorian coast.

A Polaroid photograph left to develop in the shorebreak of Cape Paterson's Bay Beach.

This website documents a selection of mixed-media creative outputs from my project-based PhD 'Memoryscoping the Bunurong Coast: Speculating on the Intimate and Complex Histories of a Personally Significant Place'. The project sought to develop an intimate and respectful storytelling practice to understand and articulate the deeply personal but often contradictory connection I have with the Bunurong Coast and it's eclectic histories.

The culmination of this research project, spanning nearly a decade, has seen me develop a viable creative practice methodology—my memoryscoping—that encompasses amalgamate fusions of writing, Polaroid photography, videography, archival research and visitation.

The creation of these deliberately intimate and localised histories of place coincided with a period of profound personal transformation.

My OneStep600 Polaroid camera on the post at the Cape Paterson Bay Beach.

It is a journey that has seen me embrace fatherhood and navigate the ups and downs of life, work, and study. That time also coincided with the world-changing rip and tear of the COVID pandemic, wars and genocide, and witnessing the ever-escalating impacts of the climate emergency.

Importantly, it also emcompassed the continuation of a reflective personal reconciliation journey where I have actively attempted to increase my awareness of, and appreciation for, what is involved in appropriate and respectful acknowledgement of Aboriginal culture and custodianship. It is an ongoing process that includes interrogating the discomforts, obligations and conforting truths of living on unceded Aboriginal land as a White Australian settler.

While that journey has fundamentally changed me, my deep-seated connection with the Bunurong Coast has only intensified. The primary concern of this research has remained developing a creative practice methodology to articulate and embody intimate yet respectful stories of a deeply special place. A place that both settles and unsettles me. I hope my storytelling experimentation does some justice to the magnificently daunting and complex messiness and beauty of this utterly enchanting part of the world.

A speculative hand annotated Polaroid photograph of the wominjeka signage that adorns the Bass Coast Shire Office in Wonthaggi.

I was born and live on Bunurong/Boonwurrung land. It is, and always will be, Aboriginal Land. I respectfully acknowledge Aboriginal Ancestors and Elders past, present and emerging. They are the traditional custodians and first storytellers of this place.

In terms of my position as a guest on these lands and waters, I state my lineage and purpose. I am Rees Quilford and I make a commitment to Bundjil and to the land of the Kulin. I will not harm the children. I will tread lightly on the land and waterways. I will try to understand my ways of knowing, my ways of doing, and my ways of being. I will listen to what this place tells me.