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There are a variety of ways to photograph a city; you can produce propaganda by taking early morning photographs of wholesome, smiling young actors roller-blading past local landmarks, dressed in wardrobe selections from the last margarine or tampon commercial they appeared in. You can focus on urban universalities, sacrificing the particular character and local flavour of the place to address broader issues like alienation, globalisation and consumer culture, a la Gursky. You can mythologise the place, present it in poetic terms, infuse it with your own seductive narrative, invent it for an audience who’ve yet to visit it. Think of Brassai’s Paris, Weegee’s New York, or Henson’s Melbourne (I’ve been to Melbourne and it’s not always night)!

The fortunes of our urban precincts are constantly shifting due to progress. Areas and landmarks that were once the focus of civic pride have fallen into neglect and disrepair, awaiting inevitable erasure in the wake of the next wave of gentrification.

As newcomers move to Brisbane at an unprecedented rate, the city is being rapidly transformed. Once fashionable retail, industrial and residential precincts now lay fallow, awaiting development. In these spaces the stories of the past co exist with ones yet to be written. Their traces inhabit disused buildings and overgrown, untended gardens like ghosts awaiting exorcism.

Extract from catalogue essay by Ray Cook, the catalogue will be available from the QCP during the exhibition.