Photographic inquiry and the reflective practitioner

This paper presents images of Sydney's subversive irregular spaces, analysing the role that the photographer as researcher plays in defining and documenting space and alternative communities. The Sydney alternative arts and performance scenes have been operating as a system of unofficial venues. Many artists and musicians etch out an existence in dissident spaces, away from the norms of the profit driven venue experience. These irregular venues are not purpose built spaces and consist of a range of warehouses, lounge rooms and re-valorised buildings within Sydney. My research utilises photography to capture these temporal spaces as they shift, relocate and reform new networks in the face of imminent closure or exposure. I capture and map these networks as my photography responds to cultural 'actors' both human and non-human and records my internal and external interpretations of space. This paper explores a reflexive process of my embodied experience with irregular time and spaces that resist public visibility.