Tori, 2 Footscray Ave., 15/8/2001

item details

NameTori, 2 Footscray Ave., 15/8/2001

ProductionAndrew Ross; photographer; 2001; Wellington

Classificationblack-and-white prints, gelatin silver prints, works of art

Materialssilver, photographic gelatin, photographic paper

Materials Summaryblack and white photograph, gelatin silver print

Techniquesphotography, black-and-white photography

DimensionsImage: 240mm (width), 189mm (height)

Registration NumberO.032972

Credit linePurchased 2009

Overview

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

Like Les Cleveland and Laurence Aberhart, Andrew Ross has made a career of photographing relics of earlier times — a sort of visual archaeology. He homes in on old factories and small businesses still hanging in against the odds of modern commerce, as well as people living outside consumerist society in houses due, or overlooked, for demolition. This photograph shows a backwater of Wellington’s upper Cuba Street area that was home to a vibrant, bohemian community before much of it was demolished or shifted to make way for the Inner-City Bypass that opened in 2006. A ghostly resident — presumably Tori — looks out at Ross from a dark interior as he lovingly preserves every soon-to-vanish dilapidated detail with his high-resolution, tripod-mounted view camera.