Kate van der Drift, Waxing Gibbous to Waxing Crescent, November 2022 II, 37°25’47.4″S 175°30’39.2″E, 2022. Chromogenic Photograph from 4×5” Negative, edition of 5 + 2AP, 142.3 x 110cm. Courtesy: the artist and Sanderson Contemporary Art, Auckland.
Sanderson presents the exhibition Susurrations, curated by Women in Photography NZ + AU. Featuring work by Poppy Lekner, Johanna Mechen, Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka, Petra Scheuber, Kate van der Drift and Virginia Woods-Jack.
“Susurrations explores the narratives which can emerge from a sustained relationship between photographer and environment. It also suggests a particular way of understanding photography – as a process which engages with open ended enquiry, discovery and play, and as a form of contemplation. As viewers, we’re invited to consider the value of what emerges when we slow down to make, and look at, photography.
In our image dense culture we tend to both produce and consume what could be termed ‘fast photography’. We can lose the ability to enjoy photography as a process, as well as the capacity to deeply notice what it can show us; visual overwhelm doesn’t encourage careful observation. As the artist Joan Fontcuberta has observed, “Saturation actually causes blindness. Just as an excess of information amounts to an absence of information, so the super abundance and omnipresence of images is tantamount to their suppression.”
The exhibitors in Susurrations are keenly aware of this, in that their work collectively suggests a slowing down, a sustained enquiry into their concerns. Featuring work by Poppy Lekner, Johanna Mechen, Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka, Petra Scheuber, Kate van der Drift and Virginia Woods-Jack, Susurrations explores place and memory, materiality, enquiry and play, as a contemplative process of looking and making.
The exhibition considers our connectedness to our environments, the narratives of domestic and cultural spaces, as well as of the whenua, awa, sky and sea which surround us. The meditative enquiry apparent in Susurrations also suggests a quiet resistance to the cultural milieu in which we live – which prioritises productivity over creativity and play, surface over depth, haste over contemplation.” – Deidra Sullivan, 2023.
