Nostalgic Desires

Cally Whitham

Taking an idealistic view of the world, Cally Whitham (b. 1972) records the ordinary, transforming it into a surreal landscape, reflecting the way places are perceived and altered through nostalgia and memory. Driven by a desire to remember, Whitham uses her camera to collect images, which allows her to preserve her surroundings forever. At the age of 11, she spent Christmas using her first roll of film shooting her favourite things, including her aunt’s farm, an old house she wanted to live in and a big tree at the beach. As an adult she returns to similar subjects, recapturing shadows of times past. Based in New Zealand, Whitham finds the subtle, forgotten and overlooked in these locations, which are touched with beauty through their ordinariness and familiarity. Layering her photographs with emotion, the works selected explore the ways in which personal milieus are captured. The images featured are from North Island and pay homage to the places we inhabit. They are an overview from the Dwell series.

www.cally.co.nz