Six for Gold
Jake Mein, Untitled, Zirka, 2017
Archival print, European birch frame dyed & waxed face profile with art glass, edition of 3 + AP
Jake Mein, born in Ngaio, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, is an artist based in New Zealand. He holds a BDes (Hons) in Photography from Massey University. Mein’s work explores the sense of belonging, home, and the deterioration of familiar places. His project Six for Gold was published by the independent publisher Bad News Books. Jake was awarded PDN’s emerging photographer award in 2019 and chosen as one of thirty artists worldwide for the second cycle of the PARALLEL European Photo Based Platform.
Six for Gold was photographed between 2008-2017 comprising nearly a decade practice. Six for Gold acts as a visual poem, wandering from anonymous cityscapes to people caught in the moment between one action and another. Some photographic essays are tightly structured around a single subject, stories are unfolded in a recognisable narrative. In Six for Gold there are three or four genres of photography combined together to draw less certain conclusions, or perhaps there are no conclusions, only a series of questions. These are photographs of people in motion, captured moments of beings who seem to be still only for a second. There is a depth of feeling that the current moment is not being taken for granted, but at the same time that the following moment will be even better. They are hopeful and optimistic, yet still grounded in reality. The camera is used as a tool to destabilise familiar scenes and to explore notions of home or belonging in an increasingly transitory world. It is centred largely around place, both at home in Aotearoa and abroad. Where is home for a young person in today’s world? We are told we live in a global community but here at the bottom of the world, we understand that we are physical beings and physical distance matters.
- Caroline McQuarrie, 2018