Known to its former residents as ‘The Lake’, Lake Margaret village occupies a unique place in the social history and cultural psyche of Tasmania. Built to support Tasmania’s first hydroelectric power scheme, the West Coast mining boom and Tasmania’s prosperity could not have existed without it.

Living and working in almost complete isolation, over 105 years of operation its tiny community of workers forged their own collective identity, culture and sense of pride.  A place remembered as a kind of utopian village in the wilderness. The story of seven families living in a tiny remote community dedicated to the generation of power in support of industry provides a compelling evocation of the struggle of modernity.

Now abandoned, Lake Margaret village appears as a ghost town, slowly disappearing into the mists, its future uncertain. Yet, while the families have gone, their spirit lingers on in the architectural remains, traces of gardens, community hall and the still working power station.

No longer viable as a home for power station workers, Lake Margaret intrigues and inspires visitors, evoking the question ‘what now?’ A gradual and graceful decline back into the rainforest from which it sprang? A museum which fixes its buildings in time, looking backwards, complete with plaques and properly respectful bus tours?

Or something alive and new, creative, renewed.