Cool Change

Samantha Matthews

Opening: October 2 5:30 pm

Viewing: October 2 until October 19

This collection of work is part of an evolving series of images taken since returning to my hometown of Whanganui. During this time, I began residing in the central city, a completely different experience to my childhood growing up in a rural environment just south of town. I felt a shift not only in my personal lifestyle and routine, but also in my approach to my photographic practice.

Over the past few years, I have continued to explore the idea of the revisit and how photography can become part of the tension between our sense of reality and nostalgia. With the camera around my neck facilitating a reactivation of memory, on my wandering walks down familiar streets I soon realise my recollection of those places and how they act as signifiers of my memories has also shifted. I have no specific criteria for what I set out to capture – it is more a heightened awareness of re-engagement that I seek. Of chasing that feeling found when shooting in brand new locations, in a place that is not new to me. Can I gain a fresh perspective on something that is so familiar? Can I tell what has changed or stayed the same, or do I let my photographs do that for me?

Some images selected for inclusion in this exhibition were taken on recent, routine pathways. Like the bottle of a former school canteen beverage that was left outside my front deck. Or the supermarket trolleys stuck in the silt, caught with the rising tide as I walked back from the riverside market. One offers a view of a formerly well driven route, across the train tracks on Barrack Street on the way to my late grandparents’ house. A place I no longer go, but now I can stop to photograph the things that were once passed by on the way.

{ Gallery 2 }