Fiona Amundsen
Garden Place
In Fiona Amundsen’s ongoing photographic series ‘Garden Place’, civic sites are deprived of people and seem therefore to be stripped of meaning. Furthermore—until now—her images have borne little taint of artistic expressiveness. Thus drained of life the works have offered a rare unclouded glimpse of the abstract forms and forces moulding all human life. Squares and plazas, forecourts and promenades have stared at us blankly, reflecting the objective, impartial stare of the camera itself, and left us wondering what kind of life could ever warm such spaces. This aesthetic indifference has been a powerful tonic for anyone seduced by the particularising narratives of documentary photography. And Amundsen’s photographic nihilism has demanded an equally cool gaze from its viewers.
In the most recent ‘Garden Place’ works, however, blank surveillance is not the only thing on offer. By Amundsen’s exacting standards these new images are sloppy—decidedly expressive elements have slipped through her net. The frames are crowded and chaotic. They approach their subjects from odd, skewiff angles. They contain diagonals, pockets of movement, blurs caused by the breeze in the trees. After the old steely blues these colours verge on saturation. Boldest of all, flared light, reflections and even shadows encroach on the impassive surfaces.
Of course these are very tiny births. Amundsen has not relinquished control over her medium. She isn’t photographing people, and her work is still scientifically precise. These openings in the membrane of her practice are small and restrained, they hardly amount to a collapse. But only such control could withstand the emergence of seductive fragments without regressing to old ways of looking. Only against a resolutely neutral ground could the minutest outbursts—the intersection of pole and cloud, the flutter of a flag—strike one so joyously.
And once we’ve seen Amundsen’s strange sites afresh—as generous sites of plenitude and potential—perhaps we can occupy physical space afresh. Whatever productive feelings we find in these uncanny environs will be carried forward with us into the equally artificial city. And as we go, with a bit of luck, we’ll remember a few of the infinite ways of being in urban space.
Cassandra Barnett
This text is an edited excerpt from Cassandra Barnett, ‘Stranger than kindness: New works from Garden Place by Fiona Amundsen’. Reproduced with kind permission of Cassandra Barnett, Architecture New Zealand and Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland.
Fiona Amundsen artist bio:
Born in Auckland, 1973
Lives and works in Auckland
Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Social Science Honours (First class honours), University of Waikato, Hamilton; Master of Social Science (First class honours), University of Waikato, Hamilton
Selected solo exhibitions include: 'Garden Place', Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland (2006); 'Garden Place', McNamara Gallery, Wanganui (2006); 'Time Trials', Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra (2004).
Selected group exhibitions include: 'Contemporary New Zealand Photographers', Starkwhite, Auckland (2005); 'Slow Release', Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2002).
Image credits:
Fiona Amundsen
Galway Street (facing North), Auckland, 25/09/2006, 6.45 (Golden Window) 2006
from the series 'Garden Place'
Chromira digital photograph
Courtesy of the artist, McNamara Gallery Photography, Wanganui and Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland
Galway Street (facing East), Auckland, 17/09/2006, 6.33 (Wet Paving Stones) 2006
from the series 'Garden Place'
Chromira digital photograph
Courtesy of the artist, McNamara Gallery Photography, Wanganui and Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland
Market Square, Auckland, 15/09/2006, 6.38 (Leaf Pattern) 2006
from the series 'Garden Place'
Chromira digital photograph
Courtesy of the artist, McNamara Gallery Photography, Wanganui and Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland