I missed the Full Spectrum show that was held late last year at the Adelaide College of the Arts, TafeSA late last year. It featured 3 photographic artists from South Australia: Gregory Ackland (Flickr stream), Joe Felber and Will Nolan. The catalogue is online.

These three form the core of the Photography Department at the Adelaide College of the Arts, whilst Ackland and Nolan are part of the Undercurrent collective, which consists of nine emerging photo-media practitioners currently based in, or originating from South Australia.

The collective says that it aims to contribute to the continuing development of critical and aesthetic debate concerning contemporary photo-media practice, by engaging with photo-media artists, curators, writers and other creative practitioners through ongoing exhibitions and photographic showcase contexts.

The catalogue of the Spectrum show is online and it states that the emphasis is on conceptual work, the integrity of the image and the mode of viewing.

In some ways the Spectrum show and the formation of Undercurrent can be interpreted as a response to the cultural hegemony of the eastern states. These photographers do not explicitly address the issue of whether or not there is an Adelaide art practice, or what localism in a global world currently means for photographers working and residing in Adelaide.

There is a sense of unease, foreboding and threat in the Lord of the Flies series: young men are lurking in the shadow lands of gullies and trees and the images suggest a form of haunting about bad things that have happened or may happen in the near future.