As Idle as the Air
'Away! I will not be to-day
The only slave of toil and care;
Away from desk and dust!
Away! I'll be as idle as the air.'
A slow current moves through Thomas Lord's photographic project As Idle as the Air. It stretches. Up. Along. Close to Eastern Southland's coastline, through the Catlins, into South Otago. Through weather, silence, and moments that shape and hold a memory of the landscape.
In Lord’s hands, photography is less a record than a reckoning. His images move slowly, attentive to light, time, and breath, tracing the unseen rhythms that bind land and memory.
As Idle as the Air acknowledges the layered histories of perception. Always shifting. As idle, and as alive, as the air itself.
Thomas Lord is a Lecturer in the photography studio at the Dunedin School of Art. As well as photography, Thomas has held exhibitions in painting where different modes of time, nostalgia and ecology forms a common thread between the two media. Recent projects include his MFA show Second Nature as well as exhibitions in Australia and Japan.
Thomas Lord, Dawn Chorus