David Watson's route west on foot from Rozelle [right of map] to Brush Farm (2005-07), and return from Ermington to Rozelle via the Parramatta River (2011). The walk was completed in 19 instalments, the swim in four.
Wild Ryde
Archival-looking glass slides re-frame contemporary landscapes captured on a meandering walk west across suburban Sydney (2005-07). The slides incorporate damage – missing shards, cracks, foxing, fading – digitally derived from a set of glass-plate negatives of the area shot by a local photographer a century earlier (see below). These ‘future memories of now’ speak fondly of suburbia, and home, but also of unbridled progress and loss.
19 inkjet prints on 4 mm glass
20.8 x 27.8 cm
Two free-standing lightboxes (plywood, perspex)
219 x 40 x 90 cm
See also
swimming home under ‘Exhibitions’ on this page
Chapter 14 onwards (pp 321-98) of Wild Ryde (2012)
http://bit.ly/1tPDL1m
Podcast 'The Pace of Place: David Watson's Wild Ryde'
http://ab.co/1z2DV6S
David Watson 'Swimming Home' article for State Library of NSW SL Magazine Spring 2014
In March 2015 an expanded version of Wild Ryde - featuring six framed b/w archival images by local photographer Rex Hazlewood - was exhibited as part of The Night Parrot, alongside works by Mandy Martin and Hayden Fowler.
See also e-catalogue by exhibition curator Catherine Benz, pp 8-27.
Rex Hazlewood (1886-1968) forsook the Baptist ministry around 1909 to become a professional photographer in and around Epping (north- western Sydney). His images of timber drawing, honey gathering and fruit growing across these once-bucolic climes (c. 1911-16) are a reminder of another time, another country.
Framed b/w inkjet prints [from scans of original glass-plate negatives] 24 cm x 32 cm
Timber drawing, Epping Fruit-growers, Epping State Timberyard, Uhrs Point, Rhodes Three men honey gathering Fruit growing, Pennant Hills (c. 1911-16)
Images courtesy Rex Hazlewood Photo Collection, State Library of NSW, with thanks to Cathy Perkins.