I took several photographs of the
mountains above Queenstown, but photographers Claire
Krouzecky and Raef Sawford spent a full day up on Philosophers Ridge taking
turns at set intervals to photograph a 360 degree panorama of the hills. They
used old-fashioned 35mm slide film and the hundreds of slides resulting from
this day’s work had to be sorted into twelve different sequences of landscape
transformed by the changing light as the hours passed.
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| At night, slides of the surrounding hills screen in the two large hotel windows |
Now everyone is invited
to their slide show as twelve projectors click away continuously, casting views
of the approaches to the town onto screens in various windows along Orr St.
Images may occupy two full shop windows or be a couple of tiny changing
pictures among the hand-written advertisements on the community noticeboard.
Sometimes the context is too appropriate or too strange - for example, those in
a souvenir shop seem to be advertising posters for sale, while those in the
window of the butcher’s shop or the laundry are at first glance odd and
irrelevant, but then comes the “aha” moment and the joy of discovery at
recognising another piece of the installation.
It is a
pity the artists have done themselves a disservice by bad writing in the
festival programme – the description of their installation is meaningless
jargon, but they have certainly succeeded in their aim of bringing “the essence
of the surrounding hills into the township”. It is a neat reversal – a small
town dominated by the landscape now encloses and re-contextualises that same landscape.
perspectus
– multi-channel projection by Claire Krouzecky and Raef Sawford
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| Queenstown - a small town dominated by the landscaep |
