(Re)configuring Ruin: The Sacred Poetics of Rubble in the Photography of Scott Hocking

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2017-05-12
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en
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In recent years, industrial ruins have attracted widespread interest. Following Edensor (2005), who argues that ruins provide spaces of ‘play’ outside of controlled urban spaces, I would like to explore the re-appropriation of the ruin by artist Scott Hocking. Using three case studies, I will explore how the artist, through site-specific installation and photography, reconstructs the space of ruin, complicating existing ruin imagery and rhetoric. Hocking’s work shows a deep engagement both with the site itself and with the people who inhabit these spaces. Firstly, by sculpting the rubble of ruin into sacred forms, Hocking underscores the liminal, transcendental quality of these spaces, creating alternative monuments and forcing us to reflect on why we revere some ruins as monuments and shun others as failures. Secondly, he refuses to yield to the nostalgia of fallen industrial glory: he instead focuses on the preindustrial memory of ruined sites, uncovering much deeper, sacred histories. Finally, he reveals the ruin as a liminal space of transgressive possibilities. Exploring Hocking’s (re)presentation of the ruin in relation to the use of sacred imagery, I hope to stimulate further discussion on how, in these photographs, the ruin is not just passively represented but actively reinterpreted.
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