Civic Malaise

Civic Malaise was a major solo exhibition of large-scale urban landscape photographs hosted in the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery main galleries. It was opened by Alan Davies, Emeritus Curator of Photography at the NSW State Library. It was accompanied by a printed exhibition catalogue, which included additional images, and an artist's public lecture.

It made a substantial original contribution in its prevailing theme of regionalism, and constructed regional identity in inland Australia. The research intention was to critique occupied landscape in regional Australia, and examine concepts of emptiness and presumed tyrannies of distance. The research questioned the photographic tropes of privilege, and contested notions of occupied and unoccupied landscape. Urban landscapes thematically represent places that have succumbed to neglect. Some of these environs will emerge refreshed, ready for the next phase of their cycle, others linger in limbo. My photographic research examined what happens to these specific environs. My work reflects upon the human condition, confronting and mirroring concerns about the state of the regional environment.