MARK ADAMS, JOYCE CAMPBELL, CONOR CLARKE, MEGAN JENKINSON

The Inevitable is an exhibition of photographs by Mark Adams, Joyce Campbell, Conor Clarke, Megan Jenkinson and Sam Norton. These works document landscapes transformed by elemental forces – earth, water, air and fire – in diverse locations, including the volcanic island of Savai’i in Samoa, a marginal desert space in Southern California, coal-fired power stations in Germany, the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, and Christchurch’s Port Hills. The title of this exhibition implies certainty and finality and can be read as a provocation in two ways: one in relation to photographs as stable objects with fixed meanings; the other in relation to our current reality as citizens living in a fossil-fuel-driven Capitalocene that offers very little certainty of a peaceful and flourishing future for humans and nonhumans alike. Can we predict with confidence that any outcome – social, cultural, political, environmental – is inevitable in these times.