Elsewhere

In Situ Photo Project, 2016

These photographs are evidence of a tangled tryst. My only familial ties with the West Coast of the South Island are to photographs. In some of these photographs my father stands as a fresh-faced teacher at Runanga and Kumara Schools. In others I’m depicted in holiday snaps as an 18 month old, then later as a sulky teenager, bored about being dragged on yet another cemetery visit with my parents. These photographs reveal no personal history I need to explore or resolve; yet now as an adult I feel compelled to return and explore, time and time again.

As part of an ongoing project titled ‘The Near Future’, I attempt to inform myself with a socio-cultural understanding of this place, using the photographic medium to describe something of the psychological landscape of the West Coast region and the things that I have learned - of the invisible structures of economics and politics that define the district’s history. Documenting the way an area is effected by decisions and changes happening elsewhere, I listen to people’s stories and return home with the weight of narratives, rolls of film, and wondering where to from here.