MacKenzies Bay, 2024
After years working as a photojournalist in Afghanistan, Andrew Quilty came home to Australia, adrift and searching for a new sense of belonging. Near Sydney, he found an echo to the fragility and uncertainty that had marked his time living in a warzone: Mackenzies Bay, a small embayment in the coast between Bondi Beach and Tamarama Beach.
Using old film stock and aerial shots taken over months, Andrew Quilty’s Mackenzies Bay series traces the shifting landscape of the place, as a beach emerges rarely and only briefly, when tides and sand align just right, often as the Australian summer begins. Indeed, the interaction of wave energy and offshore winds sweeps sand from nearby sandbanks into the bay. Researchers have noted a possible link to El Niño cycles, suggesting that global weather patterns may influence the timing and scale of the beach’s emergence. In exceptional years, calm conditions or favorable storm activity can produce unusually wide and deep stretches of sand, as seen in 2023, the beach’s first reappearance since 2019. Its transience has spared it from strict oversight, making it one of the only beaches in Sydney where dogs are welcome to run around freely.
Through images of swimmers, tourists, and locals, Quilty’s work captures everyday rituals unfolding in a fleeting setting. As the shoreline vanishes and returns without warning, Quilty recalls life in Kabul, where the familiar could disappear in an instant.
—
—
