Waking Life

Solo Exhibition, Parsons School of Design

My early twenties were a time of confusion, crisis, uncertainty and experimentation. Serendipitously, picking up a camera sparked a life long (and life-saving) journey of self-discovery as I set about unknowingly re-storying my life. I spent most of my childhood exploring the back streets of our neighbourhood wondering about what kind of lives played out there. I always wanted to be someone else, living somewhere else. Reframing my narrative through the viewfinder enabled me to reclaim my identity, personal agency and make sense of these painful and traumatic formative experiences. It was an empowering and life changing process that set me on a new path and underpins my career as an educator, community art and therapeutic arts practice. While my photography has evolved over time, it remains fundamentally curious and intuitive, enriched by a love of wandering, people, places, street art, visual culture and adventure.

Waking Life stems from the way a city comes to life in the early hours of the morning, when the line between what is real and what is not is somewhat blurred. The way dreams can linger when we wake. We don’t tend to take much notice of these connections in our busy every day lives. However, this doesn’t mean they’re not there. We leave our imprints on places, people and things and these become clearer in the quiet of the dawn. Most of the photographs were taken at this time. Sometimes out of necessity to escape the onslaught of tourists. I walked down side streets, through deserted parklands and markets, peered into windows, shop fronts and mausoleums to photograph what I found there.

The photographs are somewhat surreal in nature. Mostly devoid of people the landscape seem to take on a life all their own. If you look closely you may see things are not quite there. I am interested in the individual and how they respond to their environment over time and space. This is where the magic lives for me. It is also what nourishes and breathes live into my psyche.

Shelf Life

A curated exhibition featuring work by Ron Adams, Chris Bond, Samantha Edwards, Sarah Goffman, Prudence Murphy, Elvis Richardson for MOP Gallery Projects funded by the Australia Council.

The ‘shelf life’ of a product refers to the amount of time it can be stored before it spoils or becomes obsolete. Generally the ‘shelf’ in question is a retail space allotted for the display of consumer goods. Shelves, then, are temporal zones that see items coming and going according to highs and lows in consumer demand: when we want the product it gets restocked, when we don’t, it goes to waste. These ideas provide a rich source of meaning for artists when the conventions of use and display, as it relates to art practice, are considered. As mnemonic devices, objects shelved are meaningful only because they’re attached to memories that risk being eventually forgotten. And forgotten is what often happens to objects filed away, shelved out of sight. As an exhibition, Shelf Life showcases eleven artists whose work engages with the lives of shelves, the shelves of life, life on the shelf, shelf life.

Samantha Edwards takes up biographical themes in 9 Cudgee Road. Documenting the cluttered and precious domestic interiors of her father in law, Edwards’ intimate photographs speak to narratives of loss, loneliness, isolation and material memories that stem from a life (seemingly) left on the shelf.