Sam Forsyth-Gray | New Archivalia

21 September – 5 October 2019 

Sam Forsyth-Gray, The New Archivalia, 2019, single channel video, stereo sound, 9 min and 45 seconds, Edition of 5

New Archivalia explores the idea of the archive as an evolving and changing space; and attempts to create a visual representation of this dynamic nature. The work is made up entirely of still images transformed and manipulated in 3D space to create a new and entirely fictional, singular archive space. It seeks to investigate contemporary notions of the archive, and its iterations both physical and digital. The larger project that encompasses this video work explores the unique connection between photography and the archive, and the dynamics of the photograph’s role as either passive archived material or as an active and agential means of preserving, cataloguing, and documenting.

Sam Forsyth-Gray is a Melbourne based artist whose work explores ideas of nostalgia, memory, and the tangibility of the photographic medium. Interested in the merging of fine art and documentary visual languages – often using archival images alongside his own images – the process is fluid and experimental. With a special interest in the application of found images within contemporary art practice, his work seeks to create new ways of both seeing and understanding these objects through his own photographic responses.