Teetering between construction and deconstruction

There’s a brilliant outdoor exhibition of photography in Barry St, Carlton, in a strange urban landscape next to the Metro Tunnel site for Parkville Station.

Visitors can approach from Melbourne University along a claustrophobic tunnel or dash through the gates that open and close to let concrete trucks pass.

Monumental photographs in black and white are mounted on hoardings and butt up against this site.

The closest photographs to the gates document landscapes in Mongolia, both real and fictional, taken in 2013 as a travel log by two intrepid photographers.

Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs set off in a 1987 Toyota Land Cruiser to Ulaanbattar, the capital of Mongolia. They had no clear sense of what they would find.

Judging by Continental Drift, their suite of photographs, they discovered some pretty monumental structures, including giant urns and concrete figures.

There are at least 50 works in the Parkville Precinct exhibition, making it a worthwhile destination among the offerings of PHOTO 2021, an international festival that began last week.

The festival is in 65 locations around the city, many on hoardings, but this is one of the biggest and the only exhibit in Carlton.

The only thing missing is a tiny bar overlooking the tunnel crossing where art lovers can congregate.

The photographs of New Zealand artist Cathy McCool are also striking, showing people in rural settings with freckles and grim expressions.

Even a horse looks out of place standing sideways between a caravan and an electricity pole.

The discomfort of these subjects, stuck in an awkward moment, is arresting and quite eerie.

Emmanuelle Andrianjafy in Nothing’s in Vain extends the metaphor of dislocation further with portraits and street scenes that totally transform this strange little art passage beside the tunnel site.

The exhibition is the photographer’s response to the port city of Dakar, which overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.

Her photography, according to the catalogue, “captures a metropolis teetering between construction and deconstruction.”

These brave documentary and imaginative responses to strange landscapes work well next to Carlton’s classic row of Victorian terraces in Barry St.

Metro Tunnel has managed to capture a city poised to move forward in an uncertain direction with a major railway project on one side and rosemary and lavender hedges on the other.   

PHOTO 2021, International festival of Photography, until March 7 •