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Hidden
deep within the explosions and fissures of the lava fields of Samoa
the Methodist mission house of 1905 can be relocated, buried under
fifteen feet of lava, still standing as evidence of a colonial past.
Each image in 'Navigators II:Home' is a digital composite of up
to fifteen negatives. The landscape has been contracted and expanded
to emphasise its characteristics and narrative potential, pulled
and pushed between truth and fiction to aid our understanding of
this particular history. The work asserts the manipulative possibilities
of digital imagery within contemporary photographic practice as
sympathetic and enriching.
An
exterior landscape of magma hides within its fissures wild, tropical,
organic life that grows prolifically over walls and doorways, windows
and crevices. The interiors explore one square room of the Methodist
Mission house with ephemeral walls floating out of architectural
drawings from the archives into the present. 'Navigators II:Home'
is a search for evidence of the volcanic tragedy of 1905 within
contemporary Samoa, bringing home my great grandfather's house from
the South Seas. The work extends our current photographic documentation
of this awesome event.
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