The big picture
UniSA
photography lecturer and studio head of photography and new media, Mark
Kimber, has had a rare opportunity to work with one of the world’s most
unusual pieces of photographic equipment.
Grant support from the Australia Council and Arts SA allowed him to travel to the United States in 2003 and work in the prestigious Polaroid Studio in New York.
Two years on, the work he completed in the US has been exhibited in Madrid and Sydney and has won a place at the Monash Gallery of Art in Victoria as part of the Melbourne Festival.
Kimber’s series of 20” x 24” photographs, entitled By the Dawn’s Early Light were shot on one of only three Polaroid 20/24 cameras in the world.
“The cameras were designed to reproduce works of art but now they are being used as a creative tool in their own right,” Kimber said.
By the Dawn’s Early Light is a series of photos that examines the American and Australian cultural obsession with sports stars as heroes.
“The enormous adulation afforded male sporting heroes gives them an almost warrior-like status. It has the effect of blurring the borders between warring teams and the actual theatre of war,” Kimber said.
“Recently real life caught up with the ideas behind the photo series when all-American pro-footballer Pat Tillman, left his superstar standing in the National Football League, to enlist in the US Army.
“His death, by friendly fire, brought a tragically ironic end to his star-spangled story.
“This series of photographs using toy store miniature models of these sports stars plays with the nexus between sport and war, while allowing the viewer to see past the myth-making process and uncover the fragile nature of these fabrications.”
Kimber has recently displayed another photographic series entitled
Fictive Landscapes at the Stills Gallery in Sydney and he is hopeful this
work will be on show in Adelaide this year.