Camér

Camér was produced during a four-month stationing with the Rural Fire Service's Helicopter Aerial-Surveillance Team in Summer 2017–18. Artist Orson Heidrich lived and worked at remote airfields in Camden and Bankstown for assignments occasionally multiple weeks at a time. This experience implanted him into a foreign world of aviation, having only the ‘fire season’ to discern his position and his newfound environment. This time provided a focus for the work to develop. Each day at light-fall, the time at which the helicopters where not permitted to fly after, Heidrich would use this time to walk through the hangars and adjacent bush to document his surroundings.

The Romanian translation for Camér is ‘the room’. It is derived from the months he spent in a small air-conditioned room inside a hangar on the outskirts of Sydney awaiting deployment. During this time, the onset of isolation and boredom lead Heidrich to delve deep into his surroundings. This exploration became a point of relief and amusement as this daily action became a cathartic process. Moreover, it became an exercise in documentation, representation and narrative.