In the Australian outback, Simone Rosenbauer's strange museums

Most visitors to the Australian outback remember the sharp brilliance of the colors: the blinding sun, which, under a cloudless blue sky, casts chiseled shadows on the ochre desert ground. Photographer Simone Rosenbauer, for her part, waited for clouds to soften the hues before capturing on film the "small museums," treasures of a world as immutable as it is unexpected. "In Australia, almost every town has its own museum: sometimes you discover very specialized collections, sometimes an assemblage of heterogeneous objects testifying to the richness of the local history and culture. I was fascinated by the creativity, authenticity, and love that emanate from these places, shaped by the passion of often volunteer curators," explains the German-Australian artist.

To complete this documentary project (which took place from 2007 to 2010), she undertook a year-long journey in 2009, traveling tens of thousands of kilometers in her van, sometimes without seeing a living soul for several hours.

His photographs, published in May in the book Small Museum (GOST Books), reveal diverse worlds a world away from the carefully orchestrated displays of major national exhibition centers. Here, an elephant's foot rests on a green plinth; there, wooden skis line up beneath paintings; elsewhere, apples tell the story of the first migrants who planted apple trees to assuage their homesickness and ended up founding an entire industry.

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