Australian photographers Caroline McLean-Foldes and Mim Stirling share a fascination and love of Japanese culture, which the pair explores in two separate bodies of work that are on exhibition at Arthere, Sydney.
In “Wonderland – Through the Looking Glass” Caroline McLean-Foldes draws on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderful to present an allegorical exploration of Japanese culture in the context of Japan as a “realm of magical landscapes and spirits”.
“In Japan, I sought a wonderland – a sacred realm of magical landscapes and spirits. Nostalgia and an outsider’s idealism propelled my quest. My digital camera allowed me to explore parallel, elusive worlds in a way that I found less available within the constraints of analogue film,” explained McLean-Foldes. “I had unlimited freedom to capture the mysterious, metaphysical and intangible, aided by light and time. My camera and I sought ancient traces and modern insights, slipping through dimensions. Darkness and light in a smoky patchwork, revealed omnipresent, unconventional dream worlds. My fantasy Japan appeared momentarily. If we are lucky, the ephemeral realms allow us glimpses. I share with you my glimpses, with gratitude to the spirits of Japan.”
“Shot Reverse Shot” is influenced by Mim Sterling’s interest in cinematic imagery and the coded language of cinema. In this series Sterling “recombines small portions of different films, and introduces characters to create a conversation, a false narrative between two worlds. Directly sourced from Japanese samurai genre films and their American western remakes, the images question ideas of originality and the cryptomnesia – the phenomenon of the reappearance of a long-forgotten memory as if it were a new experience. The images, originally on film, then digitized to DVD, are transmitted through an analogue TV, and then finally captured digitally and composited in Photoshop. This generation loss echoes the loss of the grand world of the cinema, now reduced and imprisoned inside televisions.”
Alison Stieven-Taylor
An Ideal Destination
Until 20 June 2013
Arthere Exhibition Space
126 Regent Street
Redfern, Sydney
Australia
