Exhibition dates:
10 May - 12 July 2009
Curator: Sally Quin
Photographers:
Transient States presents a range of creative responses to the urban landscape of Perth, a city whose physical fabric appears to be in a state of continual and often radical transition. This exhibition considers how this phenomenon manifests itself in the work of eleven photographers whose work reflects a sustained meditation on place, memory, and collective and individual identity.
Exhibiting photographers document the shifting landscape in a variety of ways: recording disused or decaying spaces or the suspended moment prior to an object’s collapse; presenting the architecture of the city or domestic environment as the framework within which the human condition can be analysed; and focusing on physical environments which question current taste and notions of comfort and authenticity.
The urban landscape is frequently depicted as a somewhat malevolent backdrop to human activity but, equally, environments of unexpected beauty and refuge are also pictured. Approaches range from a formalist arrangement of architectural elements to a fantastical approach to the possibilities of the spaces in which we live. A number of series of works from the 1980s are included and act as a counterpoint to contemporary explorations of the city, underlining themes of transience and memory.