Where the red dirt meets the lip of lake Ballard, it feels like we are stepping into another realm—an otherworldly place inhabited by the ghostly “salt people.”
The first, a woman, stands close to shore like a guardian silently observing us as we enter. There is a certain energy about this place, things feel alive, so much that I quietly say “hello” as we pass her. She is one of 51 abstract, gangly sculptures with elongated limbs, that rise from the glistening salt pan, part of an art installation called Inside Australia.
We continue over the dry, cracked salt lake, temporarily etching its white crust with our footprints as we weave between the sculptures. Men, women, children, each standing alone in their vast space, silently still just like the lake’s surface.
Besides the network of human prints, the occasional dingo track or scatter of emu prints breaks away into the distance, reminding us that this surreal landscape still pulses with the rhythms of wild Australia.
Aerial view of Lake Ballard
