Somewhere Else: The Forest Reimagined
“Journeys, those magic caskets full of dreamlike promises, will never again yield up their treasures untarnished… So I can understand the mad passion for travel books and their deceptiveness. They create the illusion of something which no longer exists but still should exist.”
– Claude Levi-Strauss. Tristes Tropiques, 1955
The works in this exhibition explore the often problematic images of the tropical forest produced by the travel industry, from exotic 17th century lithographs to the seductive glossy photographs found within travel brochures and Instagram. These images have captured our imaginations, and spawned a myriad of books, films, products, architecture and even fads. They have influenced not just the way the tropics are represented visually, but also how others perceive and act towards tropical nature, culture and its people.
In her continuing research of this topic, multi-disciplinary artist Donna Ong employs the twin concepts of an alternative place and time in her transformative and layered use of found imagery; inviting us to question existing depictions and narratives of the tropical forest and to imagine alternative representations.
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“Journeys, those magic caskets full of dreamlike promises, will never again yield up their treasures untarnished… So I can understand the mad passion for travel books and their deceptiveness. They create the illusion of something which no longer exists but still should exist.”
– Claude Levi-Strauss. Tristes Tropiques, 1955
The works in this exhibition explore the often problematic images of the tropical forest produced by the travel industry, from exotic 17th century lithographs to the seductive glossy photographs found within travel brochures and Instagram. These images have captured our imaginations, and spawned a myriad of books, films, products, architecture and even fads. They have influenced not just the way the tropics are represented visually, but also how others perceive and act towards tropical nature, culture and its people.
In her continuing research of this topic, multi-disciplinary artist Donna Ong employs the twin concepts of an alternative place and time in her transformative and layered use of found imagery; inviting us to question existing depictions and narratives of the tropical forest and to imagine alternative representations.
