place ... is much more than a point in space ... but takes in the meanings which people assign to that landscape through the process of living in it
(Ryden 1993, as quoted by Knez. 2005, 208.)
In the early 1920s, my great-grandfather emigrated from Tuscany, Italy to Western Australia. Together with his growing family, he moved between country towns seeking work. In 1935, they moved to Day Dawn, a remote, bustling gold mining town located 6.6km outside of Cue, where my Nonna was born in 1935. Today, Day Dawn is a ghost town, little more than rubble and rusted tin. Land of Golden Opportunity is an expansive installation that retells my Nonna’s experience of living in the Ghost town Day Dawn and examines how installation art elicits migrant family experiences and histories through the contemporary art theme of place (Day Dawn).