Polar Patterns
2017
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australian Antarctic Divisions Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship.
The intention behind these images is to play with ambiguities inherent in expectations of scale, place, time and photography.
At the edge of the map beyond the envelope of habitable terrain where the lines of longitude converge toward a single point, space and time appear to warp. A step in any direction from the south pole is a journey north. The sun circles in the sky stretching a day into a season. To the uninitiated eye spatial perception here is confusing. Distance, scale and place seem illegible. These images explore the breakdown in our ability to read space and material once we begin to move beyond our normal reference points.
My interest is in the difference between human visual perception and mechanical representation. The difference between the eye and the camera. The innate expectation of a faithful figurative image that represents something concrete. The abiding belief in the truth of a photographic image and the need to know what it is. My focus in questioning these conventions is to unfold the layers of human perception.
