Cataloguing the Composite

Beam Contemporary
Melbourne, Australia
19 August - 17 September 2011

For the Finding Aid of this exhibition, click here
For Review by Dan Rule, The Age, click here

To compile the work for this exhibition, Melanie has undergone a process of looking back into her personal photographic archive; retrieving earlier images and combining them with more recent photographs in an attempt to classify, describe, and record all the links that exist between them.

These acts of retrieving and cataloguing form the basis of the exhibition. The archive here is fluid and flowing, in a constant state of construction and re-construction. This reveals the fragmentary nature of the contents of the archive and amplifies the paradox of photography: as a physical confirmation of the irretrievable past.

This exhibition presents a visual representation of the process of cataloguing, and the concept of the catalogue as a completed, physical item. The photographs selected for exhibition are thematically arranged, described, piled, stacked and in constant dialogue with one another.

Cataloguing the Composite not only presents the idea of the catalogue and the process of cataloguing, it also functions as a visual and temporal representation of the catalogue itself.