GHOST/HOST: Myth and Reality of the American Western Homestead

28 April TO 18 June 2016

Showcase Gallery, Sir James Matthews Building, Southampton Solent University, 157-187 Above Bar Street, SO14 7NN, Southampton

This exhibition is part of an on going research project that compares and contrasts the fiction and reality of the original settlers and homemakers in the ‘wild West’

I have been privileged to be able to access some of the interior spaces of the former domestic dwellings, being in some cases the first person other than State Park Rangers and Bodie foundation staff to be allowed into the buildings since the early 1960s. Even the dust covering objects and furniture inside the rooms is subject to strict regulations to prevent disturbance from its official state of ‘arrested decay’.

As a photographer, this experience gave me the opportunity to explore and refine working methodologies related directly to my practice, and to develop a body of visual work with which to move forward in my research.

Ghost/Host is part of an on going practice-based research project that explores the disparity between fictionalised depictions of the home space in the Western states of the US and the realities faced by early settlers in relation to climate, geography, elevation, materials, design and construction methods.

The research aims to offer a critical position towards the mediated form of the frontier home within popular culture – in particular film and life story museum sites – and to address this in relation to historical data regarding the Western migration of settlers, the expansion of the United States (1862 – 1890) and the subsequent evolution of architectural conventions and interior design styles.

Ghost Host Poster

This poster was produced for the exhibition Ghost-Host and is an attempt to produce a visual that relates to the 'Wild West'

The image for the background comes from a building within Bodie Ghost town museum site, the main font used in relation to this exhibition is called Chaparral which is play with language and subject.