Laying Claim
selected images from the “Past Lives” series
Past Lives is an on-going exploration of official and unofficial memorials around New Zealand. The project is a pseudo-documentary series which is concerned with showing that, as a nation, however young, we do have a history which should be celebrated and remembered.
The greater body of work, which currently consists of some 180 images, is more a subjective collation of sites rather than compulsive documentation. The sites are chosen for reasons ranging from some pre-defined historical ‘importance’ to those with a more personal meaning.
The works allude to the photography of early 20th Century while also being very contemporary in style. There is an element of the post-modern in that the images can be read as being about photography as much as they are about the subject of the image.
from Oedipus Rex website
'Laying Claim' is a selection of images from an on-going documentary series called Past Lives. The series explores official and unofficial memorials around New Zealand by Wellington based photographer Andy Palmer. The 18 images are hand printed from medium format negatives as contact prints and are framed indivudally in retro mahogany frames and are hand signed an dated on the face.
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