Five – Fremantle Prison

five is a series of images, produced in various locations across Perth and Fremantle in Western Australia.

The locations have been kept deliberately anonymous for a variety of reasons; not the least being formal confidentiality agreements with property managers that facilitated greater access to venues and appeased any associated political issues.

The anonymity has allowed the images to become universal and not bound to the history of a specific place. People are more likely to ignore or less likely to be distracted by the historical usage of a building when looking at a series of captionless, ambiguous images.

The first set of images was made in Perth in September 2008 and together with a set made at another Perth location in January 2009, these formed the basis of an exhibition at the Perth Centre for Photography in July 2009, five – new work by Christopher Young.

A number of other locations were visited later in 2009 and early 2010. It was around then that I expressed my interest in making a new series of images at Fremantle Prison.

Some of the resulting work, together with existing images from other venues, formed an exhibition at the Queensland Centre for Photography in November 2010.

The Fremantle Prison images were made over a number of occasions and Prison motifs (bars, shackles, gallows, etc) were consciously avoided.

The buildings are particularly appealing as some aspects marry up with the aesthetics and subject matter of other locations.

With that in mind, the resulting images were not made as a portrait of the Prison but were intended to complement the broader series.

In February 2011 Fremantle Prison asked if I might be interested in displaying some of the Prison images alongside a selection of objects from the Prison’s collection.

This may seem contradictory to my ideas around ‘minimising distraction’, naming and exhibiting the images within the Prison itself, however the idea of attempting to show another side of this iconic venue appealed.

As a place where normal processes occurred with protagonists eating, sleeping, working and playing, the Prison could be seen as a concentrated microcosm of the outside world.

Both the image and object selections in the final exhibition focused on various everyday aspects of the Prison.

The traces of normal human activities that occurred within these confines are ultimately what I found compelling.

Please contact me on 0421 974 329 (Western Australia, GMT+8) should you be interested in purchasing work. All images are Lightjet prints and come in two sizes. Prices range from AU$1,058-$1,922 for individual prints.

1000mm (h) x 800mm (w). Edition of 5.
800mm (h) x 640mm (w). Edition of 5.

Further to the above dimensions, images have a white border on all sides.

Framing can be included for your convenience and is done by a professional framer. This includes individual white frames, white matt boards with the prints behind glass.

 

View the series

Purchase the book

Read articles written about the project