SIGHTSEEING
Hanna Scott and
Ann Shelton ed.
This new publication heralds a distinctive and unusual format for an exhibition. The book, Sightseeing is a box set of 90 concertina folding postcards which unpacks to create an innovative touring photography exhibition
Project curator Hanna Scott describes the way in which, “the postcards literally become the exhibition, unsettling the way that we traditionally use postcards to venerate the landscape, because these sites are not typical tourist sites.”
She continues, “the project is important because it highlights the way that artists travel and make research. Their images are often fuelled by an unusual impulse, like Wayne Barrar photographing underground spaces and Mark Adams documentation of The Treaty of Waitangi signing sites”
The exhibition evolved from an interest in travel seen through someone else’s eyes. “I became fascinated by the idea that we might experience landscape primarily through photography, rather than with real experience. The most elegant way to capture this idea was to use sights that we wouldn’t normally go to, for instance, places associated with undocumented immigrants.”
“The unique format highlights the mobility of the postcard medium and the way in which landscape photography and tourism are linked, particularly in an era of instant electronic communication.” Curator of the project, Hanna Scott is “excited that the exhibition will be traveling the UK as well as to venues in New Zealand over a 12 month period.”
Sightseeing is both an exhibition and book that brings together 90 photographs with works by 15 highly-regarded contemporary artists from Germany and New Zealand. The artists included are: Elgar Esser, Haruhiko Sameshima, Sarah Schoenfield and Shmuel Hoffman, Jeremy Diggle, Anne Noble, Ann Shelton, Wayne Barrar, Grit Schwerdtfeger, Eva Leitolf, Doris Frohnapfel, John Di Stefano, Frank Breuer, Karin Apollonia-Muller, Fiona Amundsen and Mark Adams.
(linked names above to see sample postcards)
RIM BOOKS
ISBN 978-0-473-16560-4
2010
32pp individual strips of postcards, ill 90 mostly col. 200x138x65mm
Esther Ruelfs, essay
Hanna Scott, Ann Shelton ed.
RRP NZ $60 plus post and packaging
CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE info@rimbooks.com