Black and white portrait of a women
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a male
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman
Black and white portrait of a woman

Question Why

In 2002 human rights were on trial in Australia. Paranoia was at a high post 9/11 and freedom the price paid. Around the country peaceful protests took place against the then government’s refugee policy and the children overboard incident. Question Why juxtaposes the politics of the time with banal ideas of favourite things in a pre-Facebook era.

Participants responded to banal questions about their likes or dislikes with their responses written onto masking tape and affixed to their mouth. Sixty-second analogue video recordings were made referencing one-minute silence as a mark of respect. I watched these clips back on a cathode-ray tube TV monitor as a way to add a layer of texture which, when captured using a medium format film camera, relinquished control of the portrait with the randomness of moire pattern creating depth in the final black and white prints.

Details

Question Why, 2002
44 hand-printed silver gelatin photographs
 printed on fibre-based paper, 60 x 45 cm each