Suburban Expeditions is a journey through the urban sprawl of Perth from the point-of-view of a sojourner: “a stranger in a strange land.” What is this flâneur to make of a suburban-industrial complex? — a “treeless plain” of non-places, where the banal meets the beach, and the sublime is to be found somewhere north-of-the-river. What are these artefacts? — a combination shopping trolley/barbecue in a Mirrabooka carpark; a Christmas tree of surveillance cameras in December; a traffic cone on top of a light pole in downtown Morley — placed there by aliens? Stranger in a strange land, indeed.
Suburban Expeditions comprises a blend of contemporary urban landscapes, street photography, and street portraiture. It aims to explore the visual poetry of daily life in suburban and urban contexts through photographic anecdotes and encounters; Capturing the often overlooked and sometimes transient moments in the many non-places that make up life in suburbia. The works highlight this banal absurdism, but more broadly address themes of gentrification, globalisation, consumerism, surveillance, and waste culture.
