South of the Rising Sun

The exhibition South of the Rising Sun is part of Rodrigo Hill’s PhD research with Creative Practice Components at the University of Waikato Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

In this PhD research project Rodrigo investigates the multiple possibilities that surround photographic practices and how photography is used as a way to perceive and make place.

The depth and layering of places offers an exciting challenge to researchers and artists whom are willing to creatively explore the multi-sensorial and spatial “reality” of places and the subsequent visual constructions of place imaginaries. 

Rodrigo uses Te Awa River Ride as his chosen place.  Te Awa River Ride is a shared pathway with a planned total length of 70km that edges the banks of the Waikato River from Ngaruawahia to Cambridge. Hill sees this as a place where multiple practices and discourses entangle forming a diverse set of dynamic and intersecting meanings.  As an exhibition South of the Rising Sun works as a mediator of various place histories, stories and imaginaries, actualizing particular place layers connected to the Waikato River and Te Awa River Ride.

Rodrigo’s creative interests are rooted at the intersection of lens based approaches and place-making processes in which photography plays the role of representing layered “place-imaginaries.  Rodrigo’s photography practice explores the use of imagery to create meanings and understandings of place based on feelings and experiences connected to the landscape.

>>Join us for the opening preview event on Wed 4 July from 4:30pm.

>>Join artist Rodrigo Hill and Ramp Gallery curator Wendy Richdale in conversation for our next instalment of #RampTalks - our speaker series that gets you up-close to the art and the artists.