In the depths of southern China, not far from Hong Kong, is a town called Hallstatt See that was built based on the 5^th century town of Hallstatt in Austria.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) fine arts student, Cathy Laudenbach, stumbled across the town via the internet.

Her studies online prompted her to visit in person to see the phenomenon for herself.

What she found was a little piece of Europe in the middle of China, where tourists pay to dress up in Mao army or school girl costumes, wedding dresses or elaborate party outfits and have a photographer follow them around to take photos.

“What I found is that it does have the look and feel of the original,” she said.

“It’s a suspended reality but it’s not the same as Disneyland where you know you’re in a fantasy land.

“This is a real place.”

Ms Laudenbach is using her camera to investigate the town and how people interact with it for her Landscapes of Desire PhD work.

Her deduction is that photos taken within the town can trick the viewers mind into believing other realities about a person’s experiences.

“I’m interested in sights and what a photo can reveal about a particular sight,” she said.

“It’s kind of this weird kind of thing because once those photos go out, how can you tell if they’re in Europe or not?

"It's really the phenomena of the copying and what a photo could reveal about a copy town.”

Ms Laudenbach will return to the Chinese town in a few weeks and spend three weeks taking more photographs.

Her final work was going to incorporate more places but Ms Laudenback said once she arrived in Hallstatt See , she found enough material to focus solely on.

Ms Laudenbach will present her findings so far at a conference for CSU in Albury in April.

Her hope is to show her Landscapes of Desire exhibition in Wagga when she graduates this time next year.

It is currently on show at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in Darwin.

For more information or images from Ms Laudenbach’s work, visit www.catherine-laudenbach.squarespace.com.