The Urban Workshop: Cuba St Portraits

Initially originating from a workshop undertaken by Albrecht Fuchs at Massey University earlier this year, this body of work is an exploration of the evolving culture of Wellington's Cuba Street as evidenced through an engagement with the 'portrait'.

The thirteen photographers have responded to their subject matter in a diversity of ways, engaging both the traditional notion of the photographic portrait and the resilient stereotype of Cuba St. How does this part of the city evolve, and how does both a familiar and an unfamiliar eye visualise it? What emerges is a resonant observation of contemporary portraiture that belies its geographical and temporal confines.

The Urban Workshop also has a degree of the collaborative. While the location is fixed and the images individual, the exhibition is very much the product of a group dynamic process where the final portraits represent a workshopped construction. This seems appropriate for Cuba Street - Wellington's definitive work in progress.

Albrecht Fuchs' visit to Massey in March was part of the ongoing Tiefenscharfe initiative between the Goethe-Institut and Photography Department of the School of Fine Arts.