This series of photos was taken in and around Vancouver over the last two years. Filtered from over two hundred images, I selected these as the core of an exhibition I called “Development: A Pedestrian View”, my first solo showing of photographic works which was mounted at Britannia Art Gallery in January 2010.
Statement and Photos by aXo
Upon reflection, I can trace the impetus for this project to a few winter nights in the 1990s when I found myself traversing the newly burgeoning highrise enclaves of Yaletown and Coal Harbour. A long-time pedestrian, it’s always been my habit to wander in areas that are at the margins of the functional. It would likely be impossible to disentangle the personal from the social in an analysis of the impressions I received on those occasions. I sensed that these places were speaking to me in their stillness; hinting at the future, as it were.
Around that time, I had purchased my first digital camera for business purposes and began to photograph features of the city that seemed to be addressing me in this newly discovered language. In retrospect, I realize that this language had already been propagated throughout large areas of the world, and especially in the United States, for the last hundred years. My own familiarity with it was a convergence of time and place. Upon reviewing these first attempts to capture something of the dialogue that had begun, I was struck by the potential of the still image to translate the conversation. The photos were not beautiful, nor technically sound, but the ideas were intact. As I began to delve into the history of art photography, I discovered numerous works that contained similar nuances, and though this laid bare the unoriginality of the concept, it at the same time validated it.
Flash forward to the successful bid for Vancouver to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Mega Projects were rolled out, one after another, and the real estate market morphed into an insatiable creature. More and more, I found the impositions of development confronting me around every corner, in every last marginal space in the city. The private organization of public spaces became ubiquitous and an iconography emerged: massive excavations that transformed views and devoured entire blocks of the past; clusters of tower cranes with their sweeping jibs; a million miles of portable fencing, cajoling and imposing an ordered movement; traffic cones and signs littering every major street in the city.
This constant bombardment by the work of architects and engineers led me to wonder how others were perceiving the same stimulii. Did they gape in wonder at the splendid progress of the city, or did they sense a disconnect that heightened their own insecurities regarding place and survival? Were they content to have their passage through the city confounded and constrained by the numerous construction zones, or did they maintain a silent contempt for the activity as an exploitation of civic life for private profits? Could one be oblivious to these encounters, or was the subliminal effect powerful enough to penetrate the subconscious of any bystander?
no images were found
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aXo – has spent the last twenty years enjoying the local art scene both as participant and patron. He has experimented with many mediums, but believes photography most suits his nature. Taking the stance of a photo-flaneur, he conducts psychogeographic dérives during which he attempts to unveil visual subtexts within both urbanism and suburbanism. These activities have also lead him into the worlds of urbex and interventionist street art. Deeply influenced by the history and philosophy of photography, he mingles contemporary aesthetic concerns with cues from the mediums past in a documentary style that is guided by his humanism. You can see more of his work here.