‘PLUS ÇA CHANGE PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE’ In conversation with Gordon Massie
By Laura de Harde
Documentary photographer Gordon Massie, used the above proverb by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (b. 1808 - d. 1890), meaning ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’, to describe his fascination with, and the motivation behind, his photography process. Over the course of his life, Massie has resided, for extended periods, on three different continents. In each instance he has actively embraced the culture and immersed himself in the country that he, for that period, calls home. His enthusiasm for exploring his surroundings motivates him to embark on lengthy walks, with his camera in hand. Massie frequently begins these excursions by determining a destination. For example, in 2018 he visited what was left of the Irish Volunteer Monument in Brixton, Johannesburg (image 2). The discovery that the monument had been relocated, inspired another outing a few months later, this time to Orania in the Free State (image 3). During his walks Massie begins by looking, seeing and then documenting the places and spaces he encounters. Massie’s position remains in a constant state of flux, oscillating between visitor, traveller, explorer and settler, resident, homemaker. It is this dichotomy of identity that enables him to identify, and indeed make visible, the analogous threads between the seemingly disparate locations that he visits and photographs. Massie, aware of his own positionality, alludes to his thematic interests in the titles of two of his ongoing series, Empty Spaces and Living with Structures. He first photographed Empty Spaces in 2014 and then revisited the same site four years later in 2018. The series is an exploration of five vacant properties situated in the prime residential suburb of Upper Houghton in Johannesburg.
Laura de Harde took this photograph of Gordon Massie in action, during a research trip to Great Zimbabwe in 2015.
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