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 All Photographs at Bower Gallery taken by Lauren Bamford |
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Nightsoil, in progress, August 2010
This project commenced with research on the origin of St Kilda's bluestone lanes. The laneways have always fascinated me because they are an inbetween space; they run between roads and buildings, between dwellings, and consequently they hide many shady dealings. They are architectural but not monumental and they run like arteries, conducting and segmenting the landscape and its occupants.
Research took me to the Victorian era, the building of St Kilda and the concerns of starting a settlement. This research highlighted a terrible issue with sanitary conditions. And it was this issue that eventually led to the construction of the bluestone paved lanes, allowing access to the nightman and his nightcart.
He would travel these lanes and collect the nightsoil from the earthclosets that backed each property. The nightsoil was then taken to the cesspit and disposed of.
I became fascinated with these suggestive and ornamental words used in the Victorian era to describe the abject and spaces of abjection.
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