Through a glass, darkly 2019
A western Sydney car recycling yard houses hundreds of smashed cars, row upon row with their bonnets up. Car-lovers stroll through the space to purchase spare parts.
The interesting patterns on the cracked safety glass look like street networks seen from above, recalling Sydney’s current road expansions cutting new paths through cities, suburbs and the bush, bringing people and products together.
Capitalism depends so much on our ever-expanding road networks. They define movement and life and gobble up land and livelihoods.
The cracked glass is a metaphor for these interconnections made by roads and their central place in capitalism. Through the shattered glass we see the dark nature of rampant consumerism and the devastation of our environment that is required to sustain it. Both the smashed cars and our road networks share redundancy. The black and white images reference our impaired perception of what we are doing to our world: For now we see through a glass, darkly.
“Through a glass darkly” was on show in 2019 at M16, Canberra; Sawtooth ARI, Launceston; Ballarat Foto Biennale; Maud Gallery, Brisbane and in 2018 at Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne and gaffa, Sydney.
One of the works in the series was a Finalist, William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, Melbourne in 2017 and won the Dis-Moi Dix Mots Photography Competition, Alliance Française Sydney.
THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY, SCREENS, CHROMOGENIC PRINT, 59 X 105 CM
THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY, FRAGMENTS, CHROMOGENIC PRINT, 23 x 35cm
