Move Up to the Views

Large scale photographs by mid-career artist David Flanagan. Inspired by the 1970s New Topographics movement, Flanagan’s images explore the outer areas of Northern Canberra destined to become new suburbs.

Since returning to Canberra in 2012, after seven years living in Sydney, I have been fascinated with the amount of urban growth that is appearing in the town where I grew up. These images explore the outer areas of Northern Canberra that are destined to become new suburbs. As the demand for housing continues to increase in our cities, more and more land is being sacrificed to suburbia. Land is cleared and trees are removed as the areas transition from rural landscape to medium density housing estates. In these photographs I attempt to find something extraordinary in these unremarkable, unromantic landscapes. I photograph the spaces early in the morning or late in the day, when only the machines are left to watch over the sites. There is a silence and strange beauty in the land at this time during its state of flux. The reality is not so alluring.

David Flanagan is a Canberra based photographer specialising in landscape photography. After graduating from the Canberra Institute of Technology with a BA Design (Photography) in 2005 Flanagan relocated to Sydney and established himself as a successful commercial photographer and acclaimed exhibiting landscape photographer. In August 2012 Flanagan moved with his family back home to Canberra where he currently works at the Australian National Archives as Exhibitions Coordinator. Flanagan was the PhotoAccess inaugural Dark Matter resident in 2015, where he spent six months creating work in the PhotoAccess darkroom for his exhibition Silver and Gold.