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Under Exhibition, Ramp Gallery, Hamilton, New Zealand. 28 March - 12 April, 2013.

Citation: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

Under is located in suburbia's marginal space, defined as the open territories between the city boundary and the countryside: these are spaces that are generated as inevitable by-products of urban spatial development. The site and the BMX trails pictured exist in this sort of 'non-place', outside of cultural classification. The county council theoretically owns the land but they do not enforce any regulations or safety legislation here; the trails are not signposted locally or marked on maps and the exact location is not clearly defined on websites. Therefore to all intents and purposes it is a space that does not officially exist - this adds to the mystery of the site.

I have presented the mud constructions on the 'trails' as enigmatic structures: their physical presence mirroring the ambiguous landscape around them. The images can be viewed as evidence of other unseen things but implicit within the objects pictured are ideas about land-use, settlement, earth building methodology, arguably encoded in a kind of primitivist nostalgia. There is a continual tension between what the photographs describe and what they reveal. I am exploiting the potential of photography's indexicality - when it is at its most factual is often when it is most obscure.

Item Type: Contribution to a Show/Exhibition
Uncontrolled Keywords: Under, Mark Purdom, photography,Ramp Gallery
Subjects: T Technology > TR Photography
Divisions: Schools > School of Media Arts
Depositing User: Mark Purdom
Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2013 22:01
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2023 03:17
URI: http://researcharchive.wintec.ac.nz/id/eprint/2743

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