Reflections on a Living Ruin
Join us for the opening of Reflections on a Living Ruin, a PhD Exhibition by candidate Penelope Hunt, at MADA Gallery on Thursday 4 September 5-7pm.
Reflections on a Living Ruin expands upon current understandings of ruins as spaces of contemplation on the past and anticipation of the future. Utilising digital photography, video and cyanotypes, this photographic enquiry explores how these mediums each allude to time, space and anticipation. Reflections on a Living Ruin focuses on her mother’s abandoned swimming pool as it was slowly reclaimed by the surrounding natural environment. Exploring transformation through processes of loss and renewal, the site is used as both a subject and metaphor as it evolved over the last few years of her life.
The ‘Living Ruin’ is a term she uses to encompass an evolving entity that reflects on the fragility and resilience of natural cycles. The project explores the potential ambiguities which are found in ruins and photomedia and uses reflection and light to manifest the previously unseen or unnoticed. The water surface is seen as a point of reflection, anticipation and a contemplation on the porous divide between what is made visible and covered over, and highlights how the process of revealing can be a transformative one. As a collection of still and moving images that now refer to a ruin which no longer exists, The Living Ruin contains remnants of what was, what is and what is still to come.
Event Details
- Date:
- 4 September 2025 at 10:00 am – 13 September 2025 at 5:00 pm
- Venue:
- MADA Gallery
- Categories:
- Fine Art; Gallery / Exhibition; Gallery: MADA Gallery
Description
Join us for the opening of Reflections on a Living Ruin, a PhD Exhibition by candidate Penelope Hunt, at MADA Gallery on Thursday 4 September 5-7pm.
Reflections on a Living Ruin expands upon current understandings of ruins as spaces of contemplation on the past and anticipation of the future. Utilising digital photography, video and cyanotypes, this photographic enquiry explores how these mediums each allude to time, space and anticipation. Reflections on a Living Ruin focuses on her mother’s abandoned swimming pool as it was slowly reclaimed by the surrounding natural environment. Exploring transformation through processes of loss and renewal, the site is used as both a subject and metaphor as it evolved over the last few years of her life.
The ‘Living Ruin’ is a term she uses to encompass an evolving entity that reflects on the fragility and resilience of natural cycles. The project explores the potential ambiguities which are found in ruins and photomedia and uses reflection and light to manifest the previously unseen or unnoticed. The water surface is seen as a point of reflection, anticipation and a contemplation on the porous divide between what is made visible and covered over, and highlights how the process of revealing can be a transformative one. As a collection of still and moving images that now refer to a ruin which no longer exists, The Living Ruin contains remnants of what was, what is and what is still to come.