Justine Roche

Born: Sydney, NSW

Lives and works: Sydney and Berry, NSW

Artist Statement

Dark Eden: Coomonderry, 2025

Paper, glass, metal, sound  

Dark Eden: Coomonderry, 2025, seeks to commemorate the psyche of wetlands as places of sanctuary and protectors of the earth. Wetlands are one of the most naturally diverse biomes in the world, yet they have a dark past. Eighty-seven per cent of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed over the past 300 years for agricultural and urban development. However, value judgements are shifting. Wetlands are now recognised for their essential wildlife habitats and integral role in mitigating the impact of climate change.

Justine explores the emotive response to the space between the material and undefinable, sanctuary and vulnerability, and permanence and ephemerality. Mysticism and mythology are considered along with the ways memory, sensory experience, and photography shape our perception of these critical habitats. While her work begins on Dharawal land, in the Coomonderry Swamp located 10kms from Berry, it loosens ‘place’ from its specificity to suggest a more layered encounter—one that is shaped as much by memory and imagination as it is by land and water.

The sounds you are hearing are recordings from the Coomonderry Swamp between 2021-25.

About the Artist

Justine Roche is a Sydney and Berry-based artist utilising diverse photographic practices to present contemporary understandings of place. Justine's practice fuses material and elusive elements, ambiguity and beauty found in the ordinary and unexpected. She is particularly drawn to 19th-century darkroom processes for their haunting, timeless qualities and the imperfect traces left by the maker.

Justine completed her Masters of Fine Art in 2022 and her works Here / Now 2019 and Dark Eden 2022 were purchased by the National Art School for their permanent collection. ​She has been a finalist in the Grace Cossington Smith Biennial Art Award and the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize twice.