The 25 portraits in SCENES FROM THE MALL were exhibited at the Belconnen Arts Centre, very close to where the pictures were made, between 1.dec.2023 and 11.feb.2024. A seminar followed on 12.mar.2024 at the Australian National University’s Humanities Research Centre. It was entitled ‘Exploring the balance between recording history and storytelling in everyday life’.

The photographs in this collection comprise three sets of portraits, each documenting people in particular places in the Belconnen Mall. The Belconnen Mall is the largest shopping centre in Belconnen, a district on the north-west of Canberra, Australia’s national capital. The first series captures scenes at a stairwell landing, with passers-by pausing for the camera as they make their way through one of the mall’s parking areas. The next includes salespeople, promotional staff and performers working in the mall’s common areas and supermarkets. In the last series, regular customers of one of the mall’s cafes complement their photographs with handwritten messages that lend an extra dimension to their portraits. Click on the images below to see each series.

All portraits are made to be seen in the future. Pictures such as those in these series may be seen as a historical snapshot of people and places but, given the commonplace nature of the subjects, some of this interpretation depends on the viewer’s familiarity with the people, place and time that are depicted. The less the viewer knows about these details, the more the images stand on their own and, in some measure, the more the pictures become a story prompt for the viewer. These stories may focus on the human or emotional elements or on incidental artefacts in the photographs. People may also see a historical perspective or even nostalgia. The stories might also integrate the relationship between the subject and the photographer, noting that both parties have an influence on the process. There could be a 3 or 4 dimensional diagram to map out the possibilities but I don’t have one.