Gallery
Boundaries of the Landscape, 2012.
18 silver gelatin prints
“To exist humanly, is to name the world, to change it.”
- Paulo Friere, 1972
The boundary line that defines the parameters of the Tongariro National Park splits the land into a protected ecological environment and land dedicated to industry. These photographs are a snapshot in time, documenting the dynamic construction of the boundary of the National Park. Before the boundaries were defined on a map, the landscape was a whole. The consequence of drawing the lines was a divide, transforming one environment into two separate entities. In this way, the lines became actions.
This photographic series considers the concept of boundaries by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The geographic divide is an intangible, socially constructed concept, in which a social and historical perspective is integral to understanding the current context of the boundary line, and it’s repercussions.
Temples of Old, 2013.
2 photographs (8x10 black and white film)
Edges of Paradise, 2014.
15 20x24in silver gelatin prints
A Very Complicated System of Traps, 2015.
Visual submission for Kimberley Annan’s Masters in Fine Arts.
63 prints of various sizes and print-processes.
"The Zone is a very complicated system of traps, and they're all deadly. I don't know what's going on here in the absence of people, but the moment someone shows up, everything comes into motion."
Stalker (1979), A Tarkovsky.
On an undeveloped section of land in Glen Innes, located on the corner of Taniwha and Estree Streets, lies Lot 63. This section mirrors Tarkovsky’s "Zone" in its complex and layered history, encompassing optimism and re-growth, institutionalization and twists of fate, violence and neglect. After World War II, when Glen Innes aimed to reintegrate returning soldiers and build families, Lot 63 was transformed into a school, becoming a cornerstone of the community for five decades. However, as populations and governmental policies shifted, the school was closed in the 1990s. Subsequently, three high school students, seeking refuge from exams, accidentally set fire to the old gymnasium, leading to the school's erasure.
Today, Lot 63 serves as a transient space, utilized by locals for various purposes, from walking dogs to cutting through to nearby amenities. By night, its obscured sight-lines and poor lighting make it a potential site for hidden acts of violence. For a year, I visited Lot 63, photographing and documenting its evolving social landscape. Through image-making, Lot 63 was both constructed and fragmented, revealing a space where past experiences accumulate and a universal, timeless space emerges.
A Very Complicated System of Traps draws inspiration from cinema, particularly Tarkovsky's Stalker. The photographs represent pauses in the cinematic flow, with the gaps between still images creating an allusive and tangential narrative. These ruptures between images release the relationship between image and cinematic time from movement's momentum, allowing texture, scale, focus, depth of field, and tonal qualities to restructure the narrative. The resulting space becomes a simulated environment, inviting viewers to insert themselves and craft their own narratives. The montage of shots emphasizes the fragmented, partial nature of Lot 63’s story, paralleling the atmospheric nature of Tarkovsky’s Zone.
A Hobo Asked Me for Privacy, And All I Gave Him Was A Dollar, 2018.
12 Digital Photographs
The Library, 2023.
Digital photograph of the Browne School of Art Library
“The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and our future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognise creatures of the information.”
- Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel
To Be Blunt, 2024.
Single channel, colour, HD video. No sound. 8 Sec loop.
70x100mm Drawing on paper
All Saints Fall, 2024.
2 6x4in inkjet photographs - diptych
`All Saints Fall is a work about tradition and disruption. There is an inherent tension between the scared and the mundane; within these two black and white photographs that tension erupts in the fall and elegant rest of a wooden chair. The chairs themselves serve as symbols of tradition. They speak to education, religion, and community halls, carrying shared experiences and communal history. If you grew up on these wooden structures, there is an understanding that comfort was sacrificed for functionality. The chairs, though seemingly mundane, hold memories.
There is an undercurrent of violence in this work. A chair is thrown from its aligned position and exposes itself. A gesture to chaos. A physical disruption of the chair and a metaphorical disruption of institutional structures they represent. The title rings the dreary bells of a demise – one we all face, and a stoic resilience hidden within.