Anne Ferran Twice Removed: Kaylene at Phoenix Park 2004. Iinkjet print. Courtesy of Stills Gallery, Sydney and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
Anne Noble Museum Piece … the polar sea and the polar sky (detail). Inkjet print, pigment on rag paper. Courtesy of the artist.
Cathy Tuato’o Ross Anywhere Gardens (the glasshouse) 2005-06. Silver gelatin prints. Courtesy of the artist
Di Halstead Black Bloodlines 2005-06. Lambda print. Courtesy of the artist.
Ellie Smith Daughter 2005. Silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist
Margaret Dawson Hobbyhorse (series title), 2005. Eyeleted matt laminated chromira print from a negative scan. Courtesy of the Jonathan Smart Gallery.
Rebecca Shanahan Eclipse (series title). Inkjet print on rag paper. Courtesy of the artist.
Simone Douglas Blind V 2004. C-type print. Courtesy of the artist
Susan Badcock Bethan 4 2003-05. LED print. Courtesy of the artist
ZERO
new works by contemporary New Zealand and Australian photographers
23 September 2006 - 12 November 2006
The exhibition zero, presents bodies of work by significant and engaging New Zealand and Australian photographers. zero is coordinated by photographic practitioners, Cathy Tuato’o Ross and Di Halstead, with the aim of extending trans-Tasman dialogue and exchange between artists, writers and audiences. Alice Hutchison, Te Manawa Manager/Curator, describes the exhibition as “a unique collaborative project between the two countries” that “touches on resonant themes specific to New Zealand and Australian cultures”.
Photography is the ideal medium through which to explore ideas about absence and presence. Theorist, Roland Barthes, has described the photograph as a “certificate of presence”, but it is a very limited presence. Often a photograph makes you aware of what is not there, the absence of the thing/person/your own youth, rather than offering satisfaction through the captured representation of a split second.
The invited artists have explored ideas of absence and presence from a wide range of perspectives, with much of the work having been made specifically for zero. Ellie Smith and Margaret Dawson have both made works that question the gaps between what is seen, felt and remembered. The person of the photographer, in the work of these artists, while invisible, is nevertheless a distinctly felt presence. Ann Noble looks for Antarctica in the museum, and finds penguins. Cathy Tuato’o Ross looks for an association between the local Botanical Garden and the colonising aims of the British Empire. Di Halstead looks for clues to her hybrid heritage in the warp and weft of a shroud, while Susan Badcock seeks to capture something of all five senses in a medium that by nature privileges only sight. Celebrated Australian photographer, Anne Ferran, undermines the seamless quality of the photograph in a series of slightly unsettling images that refer to a C19 emigration from France to New South Wales. In contrast, the specificity of the landscape as landmark is entirely missing in the works of Rebecca Shanahan and Simone Douglas which are as much about nothing as something.
Scale varies from imposing to intimate in works that employ a diverse range of photographic techniques, from the traditional silver gelatin print to hand-coloured, digital or constructed images.
The exhibition is supported by Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin City Council and the Zonta Club of Metropolitan Dunedin.