Claire Martin’s “Slab City” at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney.
by lee
Claire Martin is showing her series Slab City at the ACP in Sydney. Opening is Thursday 1 September (tomorrow!) from 6pm and the exhibition opens to the public on Friday, running through to the 25th September.
All welcome…
© Claire Martin, Leonard Knight and his Salvation Mountain, Slab City 2009
In the Colorado Desert of South Eastern California, Slab City serves as a refuge for what society may ordinarily perceive as misfits or outcasts yet with her lens Australian photographer Claire Martin discovered a community of people who understood each other. Unberable temperature highs in summer weeded out the many who inhabited the free space in winter leaving only the most resilient, or the most unfortunate, as residents.
Taking its name from the concrete slabs that remain from an abandoned World War II base it is a tragic yet romantic landscape that commands this small but committed group of squatters to possess the same balance of beauty and beast.