Mirage presents a collection of new and past works across the two floors of the Linden Atrium spaces, building upon Rees’ interest in the expanded field of photography and the poetics of optics.

Mirage sees the Linden Atrium spaces immersed in a red spectrum of light through the use of photographic filters—an experience which alters perception, as the eye has a biological response to being immersed in red light. Complementing this work is a series of site-specific photographic darkroom prints responding to the Atrium, in which spatial interventions are visualised through the medium of film—the eye like a scalpel—dissects the visible field.

Rees’ video works focus on entoptic phenomena, or the phenomena of the eye seeing itself. This is explored through the prism of personal accounts and through the historical story of Percival Lowe an astronomer who mistook his own optic nerve for canals on mars.

Mirage asks questions about the Idealisation of seeing itself, the construction of the self as expert, and our relationship to the hyper-object that is the sun

Please watch the video documentation for an idea of the walk through when encountering the exhibition.

106 Panavision filter is used to cut 100% of the blue and green spectrum, and all photographs are hand printed in the B&W darkroom.

Images 2, 3 and 7 by Simon Strong

Image 4 by Shelley Xue