Brooklyn Bags. Photography by Catherine Gomersall

Opens 6pm THURSDAY 4 DECEMBER 2008
Continues until Sun 21 Dec

Currently in New York, Perth-based photographer and Edith Cowan University PhD candidate Catherine Gomersall brings her latest series of work to Melbourne in Brooklyn Bags.

The ‘plastic bag’ has not only become a controversial cultural artifact, it has come to symbolise a predicament of modern living. Photographers around the world have documented the plastic bag in public spaces expressing curiosity and concern over their use and management. The plastic bag appears as an accessory to the famous Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. In 2004 a rubbish bag as an art exhibit made headlines and is binned by a cleaner at the Tate Gallery in Britain. Petitions litter the streets and internet forum sites by local and national activists encouraging the public to “Ban the Bag”. The question remains has the “Green Bag” actually altered the cultural phenomenon of the bag?

Gomersall's new exhibition questions these views through a series of compelling and bold photographic prints entitled ‘Brooklyn Bags’. Taken on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, earlier this year, she is currently on her 2nd photographic expedition there and will be flying in directly for this exhibition at Guildford Lane Gallery.

www.catherinegomersall.com