WHEN : Until 12th August
WHERE : Queensland Centre of Photography
This exhibition explores landscape at night in Peru and Australia. Jorge Deustua and Marian Drew began this project in 2010 after a chance meeting in Australia, 2009.
This collaborative dialogue between two people with different histories, cultures and languages led to relatively exotic landscapes. Traveling from the desert of Paracas on the coast of Peru, up into the sacred valley of the Andes and into the south jungle of Peru, the Sandoval valley, the collaboration allowed both to witness another country supported through local knowledge and understanding. These National Parks and archeological sites were corresponded in Australia by travels to Fraser Island, Girraween National park and the pristine coastline of Central Queensland.
Backpacks of torches, cameras and tripods, daylight surveillance excursions, negotiations for access and careful night navigation were necessary. The work is a performed engagement between body and landscape. The light drawing leaves its trace on the rock and the tree but only the camera collects this information on the gelatinous layers in the film. Developed, scanned, processed and printed, the photograph is a mechanical, chemical, digital translation of the ‘event’. This ‘translation’, the dislocated photograph, continues on to cross borders in time.
Australia and Peru border the Pacific Ocean and share other connections: the southern hemisphere, a continuity of indigenous peoples and culture, a history of destructive European colonization and an expansive and richly diverse natural environment. The aim was to discover these connections and build bridges for the future.
Marian Drew – www.mariandrew.com.au
Jorge Deustua – www.jorgedeustua.com
Image – Marian Drew & Jorge Deustua ‘Panadanus’ 2010
