Sweet Memories

Sunbeam Foods

2013

As a designer, photojournalist and principal of Peter Campbell Design, Peter believes strongly that the social impact of industrial change should be recognised and sensitively documented; he was instrumental in the creation and publishing of two touching, photographic essays on the Westons Biscuit factories in Sydney and Melbourne when they closed in 2004.

In 2013 he was commissioned to take this final snapshot of the historic Angas Park Fruit Company at the end of the Angaston chapter of its illustrious story. It was a moment in time that finally closed the door on a vibrant socio-industrial era in South Australia’s Barossa Valley.

Peter spent time in Angaston getting to know and understand the operations, the facilities and the people who made it all happen; from the offices, orchards, workshops and factory floors. Their relationships with each other, their work and their environment create the ‘invisible’ landscapes of the factory in human and industrial terms. With the factory closing down around him, Peter had to shoot quickly to capture the product, processes, spaces, characters and atmosphere of the factory.

The book was then designed and produced; with colour portraits of every member of staff, and a substantial history researched by Dr Stephen Gapps, the publication is a moving memento of a unique time and place for the many people to whom the Angas Park community became a second family.

In his photography, Peter looks for the ambiguous, the poignant and the surreal as abstracted symbols of a vanishing place and culture; for the dignity and emotional scale of seemingly ‘ordinary’ people undertaking what may appear to some as mundane activity.

The task is to observe without judgement, and help to find the balance between the pleasure and effort of work well done, and the inevitability of change.

As you turn the pages of the book these landscapes become visible; Angas Park has gone from Angaston, but the memories and good will of many thousands resonate still.

COLLABORATORS

Photograpy and Creative Direction: Peter Campbell

Design Director: Lea Barnett

History Editor: Stephen Gapps

Photographic Assistant: Hannah Bowden