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Clip description
Time-based portraits at a family home and Housing Commission flats in Erskineville and Redfern.
Curator’s notes
There are some beautiful moments in this sequence. A young man seesaws between toughness and laughter as he stares down the camera. It is interesting to think about which mood a still photograph might have captured. The twins in Vegemite t-shirts have a comical quality, especially in this context that explores the nature of Australian suburbia.
Caesar wanted to explore the construction of 'safety’ and 'the whole idea that, as a society, bad things are out there and we can build something that makes us safe and protects us [but] how tenuous that idea of safety is’. The film also pushes the boundaries around popular images of Australian suburbia by showing a diverse range of inhabitants:
[I was] interested in saying this is our image of Australia … Euro-centric, middle class, healthy – like margarine ads … But who we really are is the rest as well … old people dying in nursing homes and young guys who feel marginalised … I was interested in presenting a spectrum.
The sequence also shows grainy visions of building sites, made eerie through their visual treatment and music from David Bridie and John Phillips, who Caesar met after attending a pub performance by their band Not Drowning, Waving. To get a grainy, abstract quality, the building site footage was shot on Hi8 film, and then filmed off a video monitor.
