AMANDA DUSTING

Video by Amanda Dusting, Pafos Archaeological Excavations 1998-2006, film loop on a DVD, duration 10 min, from the exhibition Travellers from Australia, exhibited at the Pailia Ilektriki, Ktima Pafos, Cyprus, 2-15 October, as part of the official program of the Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture.

Artist Statement

Amanda Dusting originally trained as a painter and filmmaker at Newcastle College of Advanced Education and then the University of Technology Sydney and was the recipient of two grants from the Australian Film Commission to make short animated and live-action films. But Dusting had always really wanted to be an archaeologist. She got that opportunity through volunteering on archaeological excavations in Jordan and from 1996 at the University of Sydney’s Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project where she became an archaeological illustrator. During that time she studied archaeology at the University of Sydney where she gained a first class honours degree in Classical archaeology and the Max le Petit award for academic achievement. Dustin has since been involved in excavations in Cyprus, Jordan, Sicily, Italy, Syria, Iran and most recently working for the British Museum in Iraq, training Iraqi archaeologists in excavation methods. Her PhD thesis (conferred in 2015) was based on excavations she undertook in Iran on the Achaemenid architecture of Qal’eh Kali, a provincial palace in Fars province Iran dating to the 5th century BC. Dusting now works as an excavation director for an archaeological consulting firm in Sydney.

During the years of her participation at the theatre in Pafos, Dusting documented both the archaeological and anthropological processes of the excavation through the media of digital videoing. This was achieved through the generous support of Mrs Fran Keeling who supplied what was at that time ‘state of the art’ video and sound recording equipment. This documentation comprises hours and hours of video footage. Several versions of the ‘Pafos video’ exist, however the shortened silent version presented in Travellers from Australia provides a snapshot of the site over the period 1998–2006, some of the characters and processes involved and shows the evolution of the excavation.