Documentation images of the mixed-media exhibition, Ithaka – based on a physical, spiritual and psychological road trip in pursuit of abandoned cars and lingering spirits from Uluru to Melbourne, from the sublime to ordered chaos.

Combines photography, drawing, text and installation components. Exhibited at St Helier’s Street Gallery, The Abbotsford Convent in Oct 2010.

Artist Statement (nb. view the images below, first, and come up with your own interpretations. Then read the artist statement below to see what’s been running around my mind.)

“Abandoned, burnt out and decaying cars form the backbone to this roadtrip from Uluru to Melbourne. Picked over by human and animal scavengers and the elements, they represent the tension between the human and natural worlds, the simplicity and complexity of desire, a clash of civilisations, one’s search for place and belonging, consumerism, colonisation, obsolescence, etc, etc, etc – just a few things! The names are those of Aboriginal people affected by the collision of cultures.

These sculptural carcasses, carrion of the road, icons of the modern world, are remnants of a civilisation strewn between the sublime simplicity of a prehistoric rock (at once imbued with spiritual significance yet defiled by those who walk and shit, yes shit, upon it) and the awkward complexity of a metropolis which is also made of this earth.

Who the cars belonged to and where they were going I do not know. Perhaps one driver was Larry Adamson whose name was scrawled in permanent marker pen across the steering wheel and whose clothes were strewn through the boot. At the 2532 km mark it was my own car which lay in suburbia, being slowly consumed by moss, lichen, rust and the occasional passer-by.”

Charlie Sublet, October 2010

All images and text Copyright Charlie Sublet and available for purchase. Ithaka contains Limited Edition images.

NB. This exhibition contains names of Aboriginal persons, now deceased.

All images and text Copyright Charlie Sublet and available for purchase. Ithaka contains Limited Edition images.