[Audio Guide]
This series of photographs – a woman floating in the air above a reclining man with her forehead touching his face, a luminous tree in the nocturnal darkness, a skinned bear, a captured whale – deliver a visceral shock, as if reality’s skin has been peeled away to expose its internal organs. The images appear to revive regional and urban narratives forgotten and obscured in present-day society, and to reveal the vitality concealed within them. The photographer Shiga Lieko shot the Canary series during her stays in Sendai, Brisbane, and Singapore. Shiga carried out extensive research by administering questionnaires to local residents in advance, mapping their wealth of personal memories onto a geographical framework, and then using this to guide her photography. The people and events she encountered while shooting greatly impacted her works, resulting in photographs of striking vividness that transcend the bounds of her original vision.
