A family photo album unintentionally left to the elements on a basement floor.
Decay is accelerated and the potent force of decomposition is visibly revealed and captured mid-process, colours and memories leaching. The affects of decay, not usually acceptable in art or archival objects, are instead celebrated as fundamental participants in rampant, leaky ecologies.The productive womb of the ground composes and decomposes.
Ecology comes from the Greek word oikos, for household, home, place to live. The family album, and its documentation of happy times in a home in rural 1970s New Zealand, shares a glimpse into what memories might be preserved from two generations ago: marriages, grandchildren, the clock, car, visitors, an exotic tree. Lying with the ground, its memories seep back into the earth.
Everything is cyclical; seasons, generations, journeys.
Tidelines and Islands (2024)
Other works by Nat Tozer
Every existent in the world is in my room right now (2020)
The highs and lows of a family home during lockdown soundtrack scenes of the abstract, durational progression of dust particles through a series of small rooms.
Footpath fossil (breathe) (2020)
Radar footage of broken footpaths near and around Karangahape Rd, Tāmaki Makaurau reveal the traces of previous attempts at repair. Filmed during the COVID-19 lockdown, the work constructs a psychogeographic map as well as a record of poetic moments of urban decay.
Is it a rock, is it a mirror (2023)
A public curiosity found at Ruakaka one summer camping trip shows collective engagement through the preservation of chewing gum. Quietly countering the reigning corporate paradigm, this small marvel, a tolerated totem of community and collective, persists.
Erotic Geologies (trailer) (2024)
A sci-fi parable that seeks knowledge from the underground, Erotic Geologies follows protagonists Rangi and Liberté, characters inspired by both Māori mythologies surrounding the figures of Ranginui and Papatūānuku’s children, and Greek figures Deucalion and Pyrrha.