Ian North, Canberra Suite and Canberra Coda 1980–81
Reviewing this exhibition is a curious experience. I too lived in Canberra in the early 1980s and recognise some of the places photographed, or think I can. But that does not really matter. Particularities of place are not important in Canberra Suite or Canberra Coda—the landscapes could be almost anywhere in that city, outside its identifiable landmarks and monuments. What is significant, though, is what Ian North does with the landscape in these photographs.
Imagery in each series includes unremarkable suburban houses under construction, road works, a light industrial area, green zones between suburbs and land immediately outside Canberra. Viewers enter each landscape from unusual entry points. In Canberra No. 12, a metal safety guard on a roadside verge is a visual barrier to navigating the image. Similarly in Canberra No. 8, an easy visual roaming of a building site covered with mounds of earth and builders’ huts is confounded by a sign and telegraph pole in the centre! In addition, the central vertical poles are not parallel, so viewers’ eyes travel over the entire image without finding a natural resting point. In other photographs, a tree or a harsh stretch of road fill the central field of vision. These quirky pictorial devices convey a lack of framing, even though each composition is carefully framed, with the effect being of the real verging on the surreal. Each image is also devoid of human content: not a soul roams in these eerie spaces. No wonder such images invite speculation and evoke narratives well beyond the literal.
Canberra is as a small inland city, filled with plantings of indigenous and non-indigenous trees. Each photograph presents this easy mix of