SERIOUSLY VAGUE
Random Discoveries
My work is the result of a photography and writing project about the exploration of streets in Sydney in as many suburbs as possible. My aim was to visit all kind of streets, boring or animating and see what they have to tell me. To find them, there had to be a method between randomness and order.
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| Anke Stäcker Myrtle Lane 2020 |
Urban explorers have done this before me: You can drop a pin blindly on a map or follow an algorithm as in first right, second left, third left. I decided to explore streets with female names. This was a random choice but also a nod to the flâneuse, the female street explorer. Now, after more than a year and more than a hundred names, a new aspect has emerged. Most streets in Sydney have names of women whose history is forgotten. They are named after the wives, daughters and nieces of governors, settlers, developers, business men, factory owners.
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| Anke Stäcker Watch for Mabel St 2020 |
I started this project in February 2020, going through my old street directory and picking out the female names. There are different impressions each time, architecture, new construction sites and traces of history as well as casual moments, people passing, snatches of conversations, the graffiti, discarded things, official and unofficial signs.
With the onset of COVID19 my project has also become a bit of a chronicle of these extraordinary times.
The journal is available on my website
www.ankestacker.com
