Abstract
This paper takes the form of a photo-essay that documents Over the Ditch, a site-specific photomedia installation in the On Islands exhibition, held in 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Over the Ditch is an outcome of collaboration between a geographer and an historian, who are also an artist and a designer, working together at the nexus contemporary art practice, geography and history. The project collates and communicates the historical and contemporary experiences of trans-Tasman mobilities by queer New Zealanders and Australians. 'Hopping over the ditch' is an Antipodean colloquialism for trans-Tasman crossing. Over the Ditch explores the trans-Tasman experiences of seven gay men from 1931-2014. The work comprises archival, found and donated photographs from these men, together with ethnopoetic verse created from their diaries, stories and blogs. The site-specific installation takes the form of a journey, with 22 route-markers created from recycled timber, which present a sequence of visual and ethnopoetic narratives. This photo-essay documents the journey of Over the Ditch, retracing a trek through the in situ work. The photomedia installation, together with its reconstruction here, offers a practice-based creative approach to the representation of queer trans-Tasman mobilities over time and space" an approach that uses visual and textual language to reach across disciplines and audiences in order to convey the experiences of queer mobilities across the Tasman.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 576-604 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Open Access - Access Right Statement
Published with Creative Commons licence: Attribution–Noncommercial–No Derivatives.Keywords
- art historians
- gays
- geographers
- historical geography
- migration, internal