For my creativity I love catching public transport and walking. It's a calming process (when it's not busy) and provides time to escape from reality and to imagine. Trains take routes that commute through the less desirable areas. Industrial precincts, sprawling residential developments, and the various deposits of rubbish, graffiti and weeds. These spaces are real, yet nobody goes there unless you work or live nearby. For everyone else they are part of a city that they pass by to get to their destination. Weeks before on a journey I had seen these scene out the window, I made a mental note of it and knew I had to go back.
These spaces hold a sense of fascination. There is a strange sense of beauty and rhythm out in the ‘’middle of nowhere’’ in suburbia. Walking for kilometres through suburbia I hardly see another soul and am intrigued with how all the houses look the same with their pitched roofs nearly touching the neighbours. It’s a metaphor, they are reaching out to one another in this silent empty suburbia, they just want a friend and to be told it's all alright.
These spaces hold a sense of fascination. There is a strange sense of beauty and rhythm out in the ‘’middle of nowhere’’ in suburbia.
Getting off the train I'm greeted by a scene out of a painting, perhaps a Geoffrey Smart vibe, a lone winding concrete footpath with security cameras pointing at me, assuming they are there for safety yet they only add to the feeling of being watched and isolation - I am just a number, I don’t matter. The only signs of life are people washing their cars and a cat eating noodles thrown onto on the verge. I can hear people and children talking and playing, but it's only sounds that emit from dark reflective windows and locked fly screen doors. You can only hear sounds of human beings. I’m being watched from the inside. Such moments lead to my inspiration and creation of my photographs. These physical and emotional experiences provide location context to what I'm photographing.
I see tall fences looming like fortified walls shielding suburbia from incessant freeway noise. The fences cut harshly into the landscape dividing Utopian suburbia from the outside world. Strewn on the outer wall is mangled metal, rubbish which includes washing machines, couches and domestic rubbish. International planes constantly fly overhead, reminding me of the temporary fleeting moments most people see of suburbia. After 5km walking and feeling like I might have got lost but I finally make it to my destination - a concrete wall. Feeling like I'm in the middle of nowhere, isolated and the dead yellow summer grass beneath my feet (I've been told it's yellow because it's sprayed to minimise mowing). These places might not be where anyone goes unless you have to. But for me they are oddly motivating, places to reflect and be creative.
This photograph forms part of my ongoing project titled Utopia. You can view Utopia here
