Opening event: 29 January, 6–8pm
Continues: 30 Jan–28 Feb, 10am–4pm, Tues to Sat
Once Was reflects on how we mourn more-than-human loss when what remains is only absence. Photographs of receding glaciers are paired with a series of death masks formed from earth, rock, and meltwater gathered at each site, cast from a mould of the artist’s own face. Evoking a memorial image before the invention of photography, the death mask becomes an object of grief and remembrance, an imprint of presence in the wake of disappearance.
An Australian early-career photographer, Wickham has recently graduated from London College of Communication with an MA (Distinction) in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. Her research-based practice sits between photography and other mediums, with work concerning the climate crisis and our relationship with the earth. Primarily focused on landscape, she is interested in the materiality of place, often working directly with the environment to bring a trace of its history and physicality into the work.
Image: Rebecca Wickham, Calderone Glacier, Death Mask (diptych), 2024
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