Why photographer Allan McDonald likes things a little bit wild

Why photographer Allan McDonald likes things a little bit wild

Essay by India Hendrikse

Published in Paperboy

13 September, 2017


Photographer Allan McDonald’s series of intriguing garden spaces asks us: wouldn’t it be better if things went just a little wild?

Allan McDonald Mount Eden, Auckland, 2014

Allan McDonald Mount Eden, Auckland, 2014

Closely shaved lawns bordered by trimmed hedges and an array of symmetrically planted chrysanthemums, perhaps interspersed with a rose bush or two: the average uptight suburban garden is usually a far cry from a wild natural space. And yet, photographer Allan McDonald suggests our approach need not be so regimented, so maintained. McDonald’s series of photographs of plant-filled urban spaces, some taken in Auckland, presents an approach to landscape that he adores. Named terrain vague, the concept essentially means non-design. “It’s a landscape that isn’t completely domesticated,” he says of the spaces that feature in his images. Instead of prim and proper green spaces, McDonald’s vision comes in the form of semi-wild inner-city gardens. “My pitch with this work is to argue for a looseness and openness in the way we think about landscape, as to allow for a sort of wildness,” he says. “It’s something that exists within the urban fabric without too much money.

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Allan McDonald is represented by Anna Miles Gallery, annamilesgallery.com




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