Celestial forces and elemental materials accumulate: Limestone boulders piled in a former cement works; (the) Moon waxing toward full; and an artist – enter into proximity.

This limestone circle was built on Wiradjuri Country in Portland NSW, during November at The Squatters Residency, 2025. Portland Pooling Moon constellated a series of gestures and human and more-than-human community. Annemaree Dalziel and I outlined an 8-metre diameter circle for the full Moon on the 6th. Later that evening we witnessed Moon’s rise while sitting inside the circle with artists Harrie Fasher and Aiya Dreaming; all of us feeling its gravitational pull and magnitude.

Walking from the Squat to the circle became a daily rhythm, and we continued adding rocks every morning.

Local interest grew and on the morning of Saturday the 15th of November, Su, Brian and Nic joined Annemaree and I, placing more stones, creating a pooling crescent in a small declivity where the land falls. Brian expressed how pleasing the form was and when Annemaree and I returned a few days later, we tidied the crescent edge and scattered large and small stones in the negative space – a circle within the greater circle, to mirror the night sky. I never really knew how this Moon would manifest and when it would be done. Each iteration suggested the next. With the sprinkling of stars, it felt complete.

Kangaroos, horses and possibly cows continued throughout and thereafter to displace stones. Kangaroos added droppings as well. I came to think of them as dark stars. Galahs feasted on weedy flowers inside the circle in the late afternoon. A week or so before the end of the month people in large machinery began moving the limestone rocks from the pile beside the circle to another location. Everything always in constant movement. Before the residency was complete an earth mover backed over the circle, compacting stones into the earth as if they had landed at speed like meteors.

During the month I walked the Foundations site daily, observing incremental changes; all while Moon (the one in the sky) made their journey from full to last quarter, then disappeared toward new and headed back to first quarter, in my final few days, visible again in the daytime sky.

Lizzie Buckmaster Dove
2025