car wrecks: icons
of the suburban
edge zone.
There is a sport that is frequently played on the suburban streets of the city:
stealing, wrecking and/or burning cars. The burning usually takes place at night
and in bushland at the edge of the suburbs. I would guess it's an adolescent
pastime and predominantly male.
The 6 images are a selection from a body of work that is a kind of typology
of the ever growing numbers of wrecks that appear from time to time in the
various suburban fringes of the city where I live.
The texts are letter-press printed using an ink constituted from the materials
of the wrecks themselves; oil, duco pigment, rust and ground glass.
For an adolescent, I suspect burning a car would be sensory and emotional explosion; first stealing an icon of wealth and ownership, then destroying it with such violence
in the face of danger. It would be like grasping the world and violently shaking it. Perhaps a way of exercising the frustration and exasperation an individual may feel. I would speculate the power expressed is satisfying beyond equivalence.
Obviously illegal and not to be encouraged.