Andy Forrer

• 2012-05-03

  These flyers inspired me to take the series of images of abandoned shopping trolleys, alongside seeing the guys that drive around in battered old utes picking them up. When you start looking they are everywhere in the urban landscape. To me they symbolise just how much of a stranglehold supermarkets have on the economy. The stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap philosophy. The humble trolley, alongside the car facilitates this vice-like grip. What if you don’t have a car? I suppose you wheel the trolley home and then leave it to its own devices and then someone like me takes a photograph of it.

• 2012-04-13

  A while back, about 2009, I started to become acutely aware of the proliferation of abandoned shopping trolleys around Newcastle and Australia in general. I started to take pictures of this urban debris and found them in all kinds of unusual locations.

• 2012-03-31

  [Flash 10 is required to watch video]

  Here is a little video flick through of my book Coal River soundtracked by Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).

• 2012-03-23

  A while back I was in the Hunter Valley near Muswellbrook driving around when I came across some interesting looking mining infrastructure. I climbed an embankment to see if I could get closer. I got closer and closer and soon I was wandering around a colliery without a soul in sight. Here are some of the results. Circa 2009.

• 2012-03-04

  I produced a book of my Coal River series and this is the postscript.

  Welcome to Newcastle, a city boasting the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken in Australia. However, its accolades do not stop there, it also ranked as the ninth best city in the world to visit according to Lonely Planet’s 2011 listings. A city where the ominous hulks of coal tankers queue on the azure horizon waiting to collect their mineral cargo, fuelling the economy while exporting the guilt of climate change. Money talks. Sporadically the ocean awakes from its slumber displaying glimpses of its future fury by wrecking these helpless hulks on the shoreline. 

  Since moving to this apparent Jekyll and Hyde of a city my personality seems to have synchronised into a similar dichotomy. Beneath the surface things are not so idyllic. I have felt compelled to explore this new “home” of mine, and found myself investigating the darker persona of the landscape. 

  Historic buildings stay imprisoned behind block and mesh fences after expensive government buy-backs from private owners; pending release by politicians who make empty promises. Developer dollars come and then go seeking a better return, leaving a vacuum of architectural carcasses and ruins. As you traverse the city, banners exclaim “fix our city” and regenerative projects are backed by “Renew Newcastle”. 

  It has amazed me since coming to live in Newcastle, how parts of the city’s rich history have been systematically destroyed to make way for pre-formed corporate concrete structures. A city teetering on the precipice of change. Which way to go? Continue exporting more coal than any other port in the world? Become a tourist idyll with sun drenched beaches and perfect surf? Or continue with no coherent vision, maintaining the status quo?

  Through Coal River I have attempted to explore the current landscape of the area and scrutinise details many may have missed. As an immigrant to Australia I have found it hard adjusting to life in a new country, these images reflect an outsider’s perspective of Newcastle.

• 2012-03-01

  Some more images from Coal River.

• 2012-02-23

  Newcastle, NSW 2010 - 2011 from my project Coal River.

• 2012-02-18

  

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  London wanderings, early 2010.

• 2012-02-03

  

  Another shot from Bristol under Temple Meads Station. I didn’t think it worked with the other six. 2010.

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  Bristol. Spring, 2010.

• 2012-01-20

  Tate Modern, 2007.

• 2011-12-22

  

  Poas (resistance is never futile), Hunter Street, 2011.

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  Street Skirt, 2010.

• 2011-12-10

  Wales (west coast, possibly Barmouth) 2004.