Morganna Magee’s Extraordinary Experiences encapsulates a world that feels like it is looking back at you. Never a passive mirror, the seductive romance of nature lures us in only for jump scares and that leads to morbid curiosity. Everything seems the wrong type of fragile; one mis-step from a twisted neck or a nameless, quiet death. Tenderness is a form of mortality, not romance.
If this world is a mirror, it sometimes shows us what we don’t want to see. Flashbacks and déjà vu unexpectedly bring back memories we have tried to forget but haven’t been able to. Like your first childhood experience alone in the woods, agoraphobic and terrified, suddenly the menacing and uncaring side of life seems all too real. Nature’s too old, too ancient, has seen too much for one to feel entirely comfortable.
Moving between tension and relief, Extraordinary Experiences is not a quiet reflection of peace among nature, but a snatch of a dream you’re relieved you woke up from before it became a nightmare.
64 pages, 21 x 26.5 cm, softcover, Tall Poppy Press (Melbourne).