Jasmine Poole: Breeding Ground

by Andrew Frost

Official Website

There’s something undeniably hypnotic about a ruined or abandoned building. These architectural spaces – with their dilapidated rooms, crumbling timbers and ceilings – tell melancholy stories of past lives. Even in industrial sites without a trace of anything domestic that atmosphere of sadness is hard to shake. The curious thing about these places is just how quickly they can be transformed from abandoned building to a ruin, then to rubble, then to be replaced by a new building project, the past completely erased.

Jasmine Poole describes herself as an artist with an “…instinctual affinity for abandoned spaces” and her show Breeding Ground at Gaffa Gallery is a collection of her photographs that record domestic and industrial building sin Germany, Poland and Sydney. Whereas some artists might content themselves with images of graffitied ruin, Poole installs temporary installations of lights, paper, balloons and other materials that she then records with photography. The effect is an intriguing play between artifice and representation as Poole’s images make even the most sturdy place take on the ephemeral magic of movie studio.

Pic: Jasmine Poole, Breeding Ground 1, 2013.

Gaffa Gallery, Sydney