SNAPPING TO THE PAUSE
Pixels to Paper
A joint show by Janita Ryan and Mark Walsh
City Library Gallery
7th July 2022 - 31 July 2022
With the arrival of Covid a “Great Pause” descended upon Melbourne as we avoided human touch for fear of a deadly viral infection. We became accustomed to contact-less, online interactions. An unseen threat forced us to ‘unsee’ one another.
For much of this time Ryan and Walsh communicated via an online photo sharing app. But this platform only heightened the need for touch, to transform screen pixels to paper prints, to make images and ideas tangible and real.
This show transforms their isolated digital experience into the physical. Snapping back from the Great Pause they drag some of their virtual world into and onto the here and now of the gallery wall.
Ryan’s thoughts and ideas from this time are presented in books crafted on the home photocopier. Walsh’s digital images are inspired by the Crispr Gene Sequencing technology, an attempt to re-visualise the invisible viral threat. Walsh also presents photographic works documenting his daily use of a lift over lock down; tedious repetition, habitual isolation.
The show will also be available to view online via QR codes on https://snappingtothepause.art.
Snapping to the Pause drags down from the data storing clouds a collage of conversations and images Janita Ryan and Mark Walsh shared during the 2020 lockdowns and state border closures. Ryan found herself locked into Melbourne and Walsh found himself locked out, marooned in Queensland. From pixels to paper, ephemeral chit chat is made real; a documentation of this time made solid.