Sense of Place - 2019 Virtual Exhibition

A Sense of Place © Rosalie Nilson

People within this tableau in China Town seem oblivious to the sensory overload bombarding the viewer from a higher vantage point. The bright colours fused with the smells from the food court impart a sense of the surreal, a feeling of another time and place. This does not feel the Sydney CBD, rather it seems like an exotic scene somewhere in the East.

Hidden Visibilities © Anne O'Connor

Behind every door, or down any alley, will be found odd and perhaps ugly things telling me humanity is not far away. All cities have spaces that are hidden from the public view that most people never see. This work is about showing the intricacies that are found within a city I love & explore on feet regularly. Sometimes I show the good bits or the hidden bits, but here I want the viewer to see what I see & perhaps wonder a little at what is visible, as I denote my 'Sense of Place'.

Cloverhill Twist © Anne O'Connor

Clover Hill is an actual hill above Clover Hill Vineyard. We travelled over this hill with its many twists & turns for many years. Near the top on a bend grows a stand of giant eucalypts. Behind them is a steep drop to the vineyard & green pastures below. This work is about that place. Purposefully I walked back to capture them in a way I wanted to remember them, emotionally, alive, not as a documentary. This space greeted us each time we passed & in so doing, it became my place & 'Cloverhill Twist' was born.

Oh my er #1 © Bill Ragan

The images in the series “Oh my er” deal with the subject sense of place as a past tense. The markers that define this space are no longer there, though of course the space is. Therefore the subject in this case is impermanence, for sense of space relies on two things, the perception thereof and the markers that are perceived that define the space. Hence one of the values of photography implied by this series.

Oh my er #3 © Bill Ragan

The images in the series “Oh my er” deal with the subject sense of place as a past tense. The markers that define this space are no longer there, though of course the space is. Therefore the subject in this case is impermanence, for sense of space relies on two things, the perception thereof and the markers that are perceived that define the space. Hence one of the values of photography implied by this series.

Beautiful Ugliness © Brian Rope

In the book 'The Aesthetics of Everything', the author sees ugliness as a necessary corrective which stimulates a deeper appreciation of beauty. If we truly look we can discern something beautiful in whatever we see, regardless of how others see it.

Behind a rest stop for fuel or refreshments, I discovered a strange beauty in the ugliness. The grotty and sombre tones of the old decaying tank, pallet and fence against the lush green grass wove together into an image that was beautiful. The natural ugliness has been transformed, through my eyes (and camera), into artistic beauty.

CONTEMPORARY SPORTS SPACE © Tony Harding

Stories told – winning goals – experiences had. Contemporary sports space is multi-purpose and mighty fulfilling. Patterned and geometric, coloured and symmetrical, it allows different plays, relationships to develop and friends gained. All in the name of contemporary sports and a sense of shared space.

Compassion © Sue McLeod

This image is a reflection through window of LGH hospital where I was an in-patient.

‘Reflection’ involves a number of different interpretations; the obvious visual image through the window, and the contemplation of what that visual reflection means.

Within the new buildings, the age-old values of dedication, service and healing are personified. They continue in the depths of night, despite the presence of sickness, death and fear, for the face of compassion never sleeps, it seeps into the walls and is a light for the next generation. Undervalued by politicians, caring and compassion make us human.

Desert Sense © Ian Terry

This image examines the sense of place lying below the surface of Australia’s vast desert country.

In 1845 Charles Sturt journeyed through Wangkumara, Wadigali and Malyangapa country in the far north west of NSW searching for an inland sea. Graziers followed, seeking to make a living from the land.

Today the desert is re-asserting its hegemony over Country. The abandoned Olive Downs shearers’ quarters, near Tibooburra, are collapsing, opening to land and sky. To me they embody the failure of ill-judged attempts to impose an alien sensibility on this dry land.

Forest Sense © Ian Terry

This image interrogates the sense of place manifest in Tasmania’s forests.

Forests provide many of us with an opportunity to experience wonder and awe at landscapes often perceived to be primeval and untouched. They also provide different opportunities, different realities: the chance to earn a living exploiting natural resources, a chance often also commingled with wonder and awe at a landscape lived and worked in daily.

In this Hobart timberyard, enclosed by its barbed wire fence, these competing senses of place meet in an ongoing tension.

Gimme shelter © Mario Mirabile

Melbourne’s Docklands Precinct is a new suburb carved out of a largely derelict waterfront. It grew (and continues to grow) at a pace too fast to allow it to develop a cohesive and distinctive character and flavour. Despite its transformation into a modern business and residential hub with many distinctive architectural flourishes, it often feels empty and directionless. A vacant carpark level is a testament to the memory of its former abandonment and dereliction as it continues to search for purpose, a feeling of community and a sense of place.

No parking © Mario Mirabile

Melbourne’s Docklands Precinct is a new suburb carved out of a largely derelict waterfront. It grew (and continues to grow) at a pace too fast to allow it to develop a cohesive and distinctive character and flavour. Despite its transformation into a modern business and residential hub with many distinctive architectural flourishes, it often feels empty and directionless. A vacant carpark level is a testament to the memory of its former abandonment and dereliction as it continues to search for purpose, a feeling of community and a sense of place.

WOOL SHED © Mary Viney

My memories of the years living on a farm stay with me as a happy time in my life and seeing the wool shed standing alone waiting for some kind of action takes me back to this time. In particular, the similar physical structure and equipment within it adds to my recollection of how it was. This image tells a story of times gone by and is reminiscent of my childhood and seeing it evokes in me a strong sense of place.

FARMER © Mary Viney

Seeing the Farmer sitting in the kitchen eating his lunch in the old stone house his father built conveys a scene of a place where time has almost stood still. Here is a man who is very comfortable in his own place. I relate to this because it evokes memories of my happy childhood visits to my elderly grandparent’s home which shared many similarities with this place. Coming from a similar background to this man, looking at this image I feel a strong sense of place.

This image gives one a sense of the Southern Highlands of NSW on the hottest day of the year. It tells the story of cows who feel the heat and take shelter, others don't care and graze. But I see Green, Water. Yet other parts of the state are in drought. It is why my Senses tell me Southern Highlands is where I belong.

Light, bright, pacey and racey, contemporary Melbourne in Spring will see many with their heads down. Looking for the win. Getting a sense of the winning post. Being at the place where winners should be.

This doctor’s waiting room is a place where people wait… looking to pass the time: maybe reading magazines, or phones messages, whatever. It’s a featureless space that you need to “zone” out of.

But on this day, light flooded the room and transformed it into a space that was brilliant and alive. Everything was changed by it. Stripes of light make the wall multidimensional. The chairs stand out as sculptures. The carpet became a canvas. I would like the viewer to feel the energy of the light, and see how a featureless space can take on life.

Fog and mist transform the most mundane, the most familiar places into mysterious lands where anything is possible. Time doesn’t matter, concerns of the day cease. All we can do is let ourselves get lost inside the landscape and our thoughts.

I took this photo of a familiar place, which looks so green and bright most other days. In the mist, I forget how it normally looks; it becomes more than just trees, grass and well. It becomes anything I want to imagine. I want the viewers to make up their own stories about this place.

Walking in Narawntapu National Park I saw this autumnal scene. Musing on the fact that human and nature are all interconnected, it struck me how heedless we are of the need to care for the natural world. We take it for granted, even regard it as a nuisance in our concrete cluttered, often destructive lives.

Yet even in colour we blend together, wallaby and fern; flora, fauna or human, we are all one.

If we kill the natural world, we ultimately kill ourselves. Are we humans perhaps in the Autumn of our own existence?