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By: Miss Ward
Article published: 25th Jun 08
Medium: Photography
Drink: Double espresso
What:
A Survey, Annie Hogan
Where:
Museum of Brisbane, Ground Floor, Brisbane City Hall, King George Square
When:
Exhibtion runs until July 6
How much:
Free
Contact:
Museum of Brisbane
It’s easy to become overly sentimental about the homes that we used to live in. And the relationships we used to be in, and the bicycle we once had that got stolen...
Photographer Annie Hogan manages to capture similar emotion and presence in her photographs of empty homes. The Museum of Brisbane has this ten-year retrospective of the US based Australian photographer running for just one more week. Hogan is fascinated by the way public and private vacant spaces shape the way people think and behave. Photographing only vacant spaces and capturing the light within, her images display how, even after the residents are long departed, the aura of their presence and history linger.
Her interior shots of old timber houses in Queensland stimulate some kind of uneasy familiarity, as though you might have lived there once but now you can’t be sure. The lack of sentimentality in these desolate, poignant vacant spaces is beautiful yet confronting. You’ll probably either think it’s cool or it’ll make you feel domestically trapped. It made me feel domestically trapped.