THE EMPIRE, THE CITY

Statement: Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber’s urban scenes represent the spaces which celebrate modern culture, knowledge and innovation: the mall, the museum, the library and the vacuum showroom. Here, the natural world reclaims itself in an ironic realization of a paradise lost, leaving the monuments of civilization and material culture abandoned. Evidence of human presence may still be visible, but the cause for their absence is left unclear; the narrative remains open-ended.

As self-described ‘non-traditional’ photographers, Nix and Gerber meticulously construct their subject matter by hand, and capture it entirely in-camera, refraining from the use of digital manipulation. They build painstakingly detailed, three-dimensional dioramas, which often measure no more than twenty inches high, and can take up to fifteen months to complete. Nix uses a large-format film camera to render these miniature scenes larger than life, infusing layers of irony and whimsy into the seemingly grandiose scale of her and Gerber’s urban tableaux.

This exhibition has been selected as a featured exhibition for the annual Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.