an invisible hand

Stephen Roucher

Published by Rim Books, June 2024

108pp, with offset duotone
Card jacket, section sewn
245 x 240 x 11mm
ISBN: 978-1-99-116527-5

RRP $75.00 (limited hand-bound edition of 150)

An Invisible Hand is Stephen Roucher’s first artist’s book, from his street photographs made between 2012 and 2022.

In an era where modern technology offers precise navigation and ubiquitous ‘street-view’ convenience, locations are catalogued and made explicit through GPS coordinates and addresses. Commerce and progress drive these technologies, shaping our environment and perceptions of it.

Roucher invites us to consider a machine-driven perspective from another era with his black-and-white photographs made using a view camera, a cutting-edge technology of the 19th century that radically reshaped our perceptions of the world. He captures the urban landscape not with the precision of contemporary tools but with an eye for the timeless and the unseen. The photographs delve into the nuances of public spaces, the rejuvenation of forgotten corners, and the artifacts of once-daily technologies now obsolete. Roucher juxtaposes the meticulously catalogued present with a more ambiguous, reflective view. The book brings to life locations vaguely referenced, ideas repurposed, and the subtle transformations of environments in constant flux. These photographs serve as a testament to the invisible hand guiding our perceptions and interactions with the world.

Stephen Roucher is an independent photographer, based in Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Since graduating from Elam School of Fine Arts in 1995, he has accumulated an archive of conceptually focused series of photographs, depicting the urban and rural environments. His practical experience in the process of photography, both analogue and digital, informs his approach to making his art. He had solo exhibition ‘Stands’ (series of stands mostly from rural sports fields) at Whangarei Art Museum in 2011 and McNamara Gallery, Whanganui in 2012, ‘Void’, an installation in the iconic TestStrip gallery in Auckland in 1995. His photographs were featured in many group shows – including in Now & Then: Enduring and developing themes in contemporary New Zealand photography, Te Manawa, Palmerston North, in 2012.