(Re)Orientation
Work In Progress, 2015–Ongoing.
(Re)Orientation is my idiosyncratic guide to sites of significance to Christchurch’s post-earthquake narrative and the built and psychological landscapes that have come to define it.
Since 2015 I have photographed a range of such sites that symbolise, memorialise or embody aspects of this extraordinary time of trauma, recovery and rapid change. In making this work I’ve tried to think of locations that relate to the construction of this narrative in both direct and indirect ways; locations where specific events have unfolded in the wake of disaster; places where lives were lost or significant structures demolished, but also sites that by association or proximity have come to represent or indicate something of the collective experience of events, as well as dominant feelings for place and time.
The images contained within this portfolio have been selected from a broader body of work in progress. They are indicative of the kinds of places I am compelled to represent, as well as my approach to photographing them. While to varying degrees the images and captions included here only go some way to revealing something of each sites significance to the overall narrative, it is my intention that they will eventually be supplemented by long form captions. Within this text-image relationship and the selective revealing of context, I want to intensify the underlying psychology of each photograph and promote a heightened sense of looking.