As Far As the Eye Can Reach

As Far As the Eye Can Reach

Conor Clarke

Two Rooms
16 Putiki St, Grey Lynn

4 June - 3 July 2021

Opening: 5:30pm Thursday 3 June

Part of the Auckland Festival of Photography

Reviewed by John Hurrell for EyeContact

Conor Clarke, Parnell Rose Gardens (Described by Rhonda Comins), 2020

Conor Clarke (Ngāi Tahu) has consistently explored nature as a constructed form, as a concept that we project our own ideas and perspectives onto. For this recent body of work, Clarke collaborates with members of the blind and low vision community, inviting participants to share a description of a landscape as they remember it. The contributors’ texts are accessed by the viewer through a braille and sound overlay so a multi-sensory depth of engagement extends beyond the visual - as something felt, heard and imagined. Clarke adapted this approach for the process of making of these photographs, using a simple pinhole camera to respond to each description. The photographs address one's relationship to perception, alluding to the places being described without confirming what the sighted viewer may already know, assume or associate with these particular places. In this way, Clarke confronts the tradition of landscape photography, how nature is constructed and perceived, and the norms of encounter in a gallery context.