The graffiti in Bowden during the 1980s was often quite blunt and direct with no ambiguity in the message: I interpreted it as the signs of the increasing emphasis on law and order as a response to the local residents /industry politics, … Read More
In his essay ‘Australian Made’ in Each Wild Idea: Writing , Photography, History (2000) Geoffrey Batchen contests the view that Australian photography after 1945 was a dependent shadow of trends in the United States. He says that this assumption underpins … Read More
The empty urban streets of the inner suburb of Bowden bear witness to the slow and steady disappearance of the blue collar, inner suburb working class through the process of de-industralization. The streets are the sites of this trauma and … Read More
I only made a few portraits of people in the city of Adelaide during the 1980s. One place was Valentino’s Restaurant in Gays Arcade, off Adelaide Arcade, near Twin Street. My sister used to work there as a waitress whilst she … Read More
Most of the images in the Adelaide section of The Bowden Archives and Other Marginalia come from city strolling with a camera in the company of Fichte, my cream coloured, standard poodle. City strolling is a translation of the French … Read More
One way the boredom and dissatisfactions from living in Adelaide could be relieved was through gestures of rebellion and revolt. Another was through hanging out in the shopping precincts, arcades and going shopping in Rundle Mall. Leisure time, freedom, and … Read More
One of the most striking characteristics of Adelaide’s CBD in the 1980s was the empty streets outside of the weekday’s 9-5 working hours. During the weekend the streets were more or less empty, and apart from the tumbleweeds in Rundle … Read More
The Bowden Archives and other Marginalia is the current working title of the book of my archival photographs from the 1980s that I have recently started to work on. What unfolds in the book is a collage of images and … Read More
The graffiti around the streets of Bowden in the 1980s was done prior to the tagging and the boom in street art in New York in the 1970s-1980s and prior to many councils encouraging street art in the city by designating walls … Read More