What to do with Inbred & Spoonfed?; Covid-19 Anxiety Project; Videre Collective; Positive Disintegration

Rachel Allan, Tatsiana Chypsanava, Videre Collective (Tony Reddrop, Marty Walker and Simon Ross), Charlotte Johnson

Digital Screens, Lake House Arts
37 Fred Thomas Dr, Takapuna, Auckland

3 - 11 June 2021

Part of the Auckland Festival of Photography

Additional Showcase at Ellen Melville Centre 18 - 20 June

Rachel Allan

Positioned somewhere between the snapshot and studio image, What to do with the inbred & spoonfed? pushes your nose up to the glass with blacks so thick they get stuck in your back teeth. Welcome to Rachel Hope Allan’s Imaginarium where empty enclosures morph with institutional objects and creatures both alive and dead pose for the camera.

See Rachel’s PhotoForum featured portfolio here

Tatsiana Chypsanava

The Covid-19 Anxiety Project - As well as the obvious dangers of infection, Covid-19 has posed a serious threat to mental health, bringing new causes of anxiety and exacerbating many existing concerns. To show this often-unseen reality, Wellcome commissioned five photographers from five different countries to tell their stories, answering the question: How are you, your family and your friends coping with anxiety related to Covid-19? One of those photographers was Tatsiana Chysanava from Nelson, NZ.

Videre Collective (Tony Reddrop, Marty Walker and Simon Ross)

Tony Reddrop

"We often do things in life at different times, I'm no different. While most people start their photographic journey early in life, I started mine later. Rather than find this a disadvantage, I found it the opposite. The life I have had before and since, added to the way I am able to capture and see things. I have been in the past a freelance press photographer for the Melbourne suburban and daily news papers, while my focus now is exclusively my own projects that focus on the people and the environment I live in, a rural town in the North Island of New Zealand. It’s often a challenge to come up with fresh and new Ideas, as the population of the town is small but it also offers reward for hard work, the people you randomly meet, the things you might see...and you do see some things. I photograph what attracts my eye, what stories I think needs to be told, more often than not, this involves people, social documentary and the things on the street." - Tony Reddrop

Marty Walker

Marty Walker is an Australian photographer based in the Blue Mountains. His work is held in both private and public collections. He has shown his work in group exhibitions such as The City of Sydney's Australian Life, HeadOn, Vivid, About Town and numerous years in Blue Mountains Portraits at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. "There isn’t an aspect of photography I don’t love. As an art form there are so many possibilities. I’m interested in what makes people tick, what they do and why. I like to observe patterns in people’s movement through the spaces they occupy and, occasionally, their reactions to one another. I don’t typically go looking for a photograph. As with a lot of things in life, you’re often presented with a unique gesture, an arrangement of shapes, a reflection or an interesting fall of light. The world can be a complete surprise." - Marty Walker

Simon Ross

Antipodean, born in New Zealand and a longtime Sydneysider. Raised on National Geographic and Mad Magazines in a small place on the edge of the world, a long way from anything and everything. That childhood spent looking at pictures to learn about the world begat a life spent making pictures to continue the education.

Charlotte Johnson

Almost 1/3rd of New Zealanders experience some form of mental distress. The theory of positive disintegration states that these 'disintegrative processes' can, through extraordinary expenditure of energy, result in higher development and strong individual creativity, whereas those who never experience it 'lack true individuality'. This series aimed to communicate raw emotion using metaphor whilst also showing that melancholy can be beautiful.