Within the Ford factory, amongst an abundance of other equipment, the items that make up the works in Robbie Rowlands’ exhibition Assembled Lines were inconspicuous. These objects were the foundations for tooling and forging raw materials into production parts for vehicles. They served a purpose, nothing more. Removing them from the factory and positioning them in the studio, the equipment became the raw material itself, charging them with immediate singularity. Rowlands’ process when working with ‘found objects’ is defined by a point at which the functionality of the object is challenged and its history comes into focus. His capacity to free up the obvious reading of it allows us to expand our lines of thinking beyond simply function or reason, to a state of imagined remembrance of past histories. Most important to Rowlands is the consideration of a renewed purpose for these objects, one that places us at the centre of the work through trace elements of interaction. It is here the relationship between the human and human-made is uncovered. Rowlands’ primary tool of choice is the angle grinder, and whilst some see his interventions with a tone of violence, his delicate cuts with tapered lines bring a sense of care and attention to the strength and depth of his subjects. In Assembled Lines, cabinets with cut corners are still capable of standing. Sliced toolboxes allow visual access even when the lid is fixed shut. This is also evident in the lockers, with its severed corner revealing the inner space and a remnant, vintage workshop ghetto-blaster. Sections of wardrobe veneer, marked by cut lines, are positioned inside a pair of multi-draw tool boxes. His reasoning was to unite the domestic (the home) with the workspace (the factory), acknowledging both environments in the context of a worker’s life. Rowlands believed it critical to employ Geelong-sourced equipment, which was then relocated to and reconfigured in-studio before returning to Geelong for this exhibition. It marks a full-circle celebration of what is often overlooked as inconsequential—when moments in history that would otherwise go to waste or become forgotten are given a new purpose with an alternate reading in a gallery setting, forever embedded with local connection.