The photographic series shows an encounter with an architectural document, lit with a digital projector and shot on large format black and white film. The work orbits around a pdf document, a Heritage Impact Assessment that is publicly available online, as an embedded reference to a site with a difficult history and a determined future. The sets are fragmented, model-like arrangements where different interests meet – that of economic investment, the health industry and historical preservation. The complexity of the document and the actual place is only pointed at, instead what is shown is a certain interested or invested gaze devoid of pragmatic economies. Muted and focused on a future use, this is the gaze of the developer. Somewhat intrigued but also idle, it is detached from history, a seductive, glowing moment situated between an invested interest, criticality and a morbid neutrality.
Shown as part of the exhibition A Different Now is Close Enough to Exhale on You, curated by Bonaventure Ndikung at the Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (24 November 2022 – 21 January 2023). Installation with 5 photographic prints, printed on black and white fiber-based paper from large-format 4×5” film, 150 x 45 cm (30 x 40 cm each), 2022.
