Death is not here

Photography Book Review

Title: Death is not here

Author: Wouter Van de Voorde

Publisher: Void | Australian Distributor: Perimeter Books

Price: AUD$105

Format: Softcover with dustjacket

ISBN: 978-618-5479-25-1

Students of theology, medical practitioners, poets. All have reflected for centuries on the nature of death. Is it “good” or “bad”? A famous death poem often spoken at funerals, Death is nothing at all (Henry Scott-Holland), includes these words “It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened”.

Death is not here, a new photobook by Canberra’s Wouter Van de Voorde, is a photographic reflection on the topic. Published by Void, an Athens-based independent photobooks publisher, last November, it has been reviewed and commented on by others on websites and in publications from various countries. Australian distribution commenced in January 2023.

It is, as other commentators have suggested, a mysterious book. It contains no words (in the traditional sense) other than a page of credits and minimal background – itself slightly intriguingly referring to the book as “This is not death”.

The book’s 160 pages are primarily filled with photographs, but also some delightful sketches of fossils. All images and drawings are by the author. Readers – yes, we are reading when we look at photos – are challenged to understand the author’s story for themselves. Or, perhaps, create their own stories about life and death from those images. Van de Voorde himself has written “A peculiar convergence of death/life and permanence/impermanence occurred during the period I made these images. ‘Death is not here’ is a personal time capsule capturing and preserving this time in my life.”

The subjects include ravens, dug holes, lumps of clay, rings of fire, curtains, a mother and newborn, sculpted pieces, an egg, plus dead or dying animals and plants.

© Wouter Van de Voorde -32 (raven on pole with fixer stain, 2021)

© Wouter Van de Voorde -30 (Round fire hole, 2021)

© Wouter Van de Voorde -33 (cracked egg on fossils sculpture)

But the subjects, per se, are not the story. Readers need to take up the challenge to explore and interpret what the images reveal.

In some ways, many photographs are so unlike it is difficult to see how they belong together. Every so often there is a blank page. For me, these said stop awhile, think about what you have read, review the material already seen before moving on. Some images may generate feelings of anxiety or be difficult to appreciate in the context of the whole story. Or you may simply not like them.

At the time of taking the photos, the author was about to become a father for the second time. He had been making still lifes with fossils.

© Wouter Van de Voorde -31 (mother and newborn)

When his son wanted to play a real-life version of video game Minecraft, they began digging in their backyard. The hole grew deeper and wider.

© Wouter Van de Voorde -29 (Felix and Leo playing with mud in the garden, 2021)

Van de Voorde began experimenting – drawing the outlines of holes with flames. Unearthing the grave of a chicken, bones visible, they harvested clay and used it to fire small objects, including a skull. Images of empty backyard spaces are interspersed with others of the artist’s son in an eroded gorge. Were the father and son together exploring what lies beneath. Remember the supernatural horror thriller film of that name?

© Wouter Van de Voorde -34

The philosopher Epicurus famously asserted that death should not be feared. His argument has been summarised. When we die, we no longer exist and can feel neither pain nor pleasure. Therefore, there is nothing to fear in death, as death literally is nothing. Or, if you prefer – Don’t worry, as long as we’re alive, Death is not here!

But isn’t death everywhere? In Ukraine and other battlefields, in various Californian shootings recently, on our roads regularly when vehicles crash, sometimes in hospital operating theatres, in the funeral notices pages. The nature of death is highly variable. Despite Epicurus, many do fear it.

How do you perceive life and death?

This review was first published by the Canberra Times – online here and on page 5 of Panorama in the print edition of 4/2/23. It is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

Canberra Re-Seen Photobook

Photography Book Review

Canberra Re-Seen | Various Artists

Three new independently published photo-books were recently launched in Canberra at Photo Access, all examining the city of Canberra as a place of social, cultural and political significance. Each photographer, in all the books, explores their personal relationship to the city, as well as considering its wider, public meaning as a national capital city.

Canberra Re-Seen, by multiple artists, curated by Wouter Van de Voorde (currently acting Director of Photo Access), was an exhibition in 2021 that explored the idea of the city as a community of people, a built environment, and a physical landscape and the book selects and interweaves works from the project. I reviewed the exhibition at the time on this blog here.

Developed in collaboration with Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG), the project brought together sixteen artists to create new work responding to three of Canberra’s landmark photographers – Marzena Wasikowska, Edward (Ted) Richards and Ian North – all part of the CMAG collection. Just one image by each of those photographers are also included in this book.

The words accompanying the images throughout this book provide much information – historical background about the city, the project and the three landmark photographers; and the sixteen artists wrote their own words about their individual approaches and images.

Inspired by Wasikowska’s interest in capturing the human qualities of Canberra, one of the project groups explored the idea that a city is best understood through its people. They had the added benefit of Wasikowska herself leading their workshop. The book’s images from this group include Andrea Bryant’s marvellous portrait of her neighbour Maria, Eva Schroeder’s superb Metamorphosis  – a triptych portrayal of a Canberran transitioning from one gender to another, and Louise Maurer’s extraordinary Weetangera II – a composite speaking to the importance of diminishing green spaces and native ecosystems across Canberra. Each of those named images can be seen in my previous review of the exhibition, so here is just one of them.

Maria Straykova

A second collective, led by Van de Voorde, investigated Richards’ interest in documenting the character of Canberra’s little-known places. They shot on 35mm film and created darkroom prints in response to Richards’ dramatic black and white style. Amongst their creations are Annette Fisher’s delightful Abstracts, and Tessa Ivison’s strong cityscapes – interestingly titled Pastoral. Sari Sutton, inspired by the playful use of lines and geometry in Richard’s Dancing in the Mall, 1964 found her own and used them effectively in her Civic Stripes series. Again, each of those images was included in my review of the previous exhibition, and so, here is just one of them.

Annette Fisher, 4 Abstracts, 2021

Working with documentary photographer David Hempenstall, the third group explored the ideas of North’s early 1980s images of Canberra suburbs – vistas both bleak and beautiful. Peter Larmour took 3D images of landscapes. His Southern Anaglyph (dye sublimation on aluminium) was worthy of close examination when exhibited. Unfortunately, it can only be represented in two dimensions in this book. A very strong contribution is Beata Tworek’s series of excellent collages, which respond to North’s innovative and optimistic colour treatment of deserted streetscapes with austere monochromes reflecting disdain for their lack of individuality. Grant Winkler’s That Sinking Feeling is very much about the bush landscape disappearing as new suburbs creep over it, replaced by homes and other buildings sitting heavily on the scraped earth with what remains of nature being “moulded and manicured” and no longer particularly natural.

Once again, the mentioned images made by this group are in my review of the exhibition, but here is one of them.

Ambivalent collage 6 – Beata Tworek

Translated into this book, Canberra Re-Seen selects and interweaves work from across that broader project, drawing together digital and darkroom works to generate a simultaneously affectionate and challenging look at the city of Canberra and what it means to live in it today. Photo Access staff member Caitlin Seymour-King has done a fine job of designing the book. It is much more than a catalogue of the 2021 exhibition. It is a book to study and return to regularly as the city of Canberra continues to develop and change.

The book can be purchased at Photo Access.

This review is also on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here. Another version was published in the Canberra Times on 7/5/22 here as part of a combined review of this and the other two books launched at the same time.