OTIS BURIAN HODGE
Interview by Sam Stephenson
September 2022
How's life been treating you as an essential worker?
Pretty chill.
Can you tell us all about The Cornershop Windows and specifically what has drawn you to making it photography driven and how else it differs from most exhibition spaces?
The Cornershop is a project I started in 2017 at my family home which is this fantastic old building with 3 large windows that face the street. I started putting work in one of the windows, hanging from fishing wire or putting ceramics on milk crates with a bedsheet over it. I just wanted to put talented local heads work in there. In 2018 I was having thoughts about making the shift to focusing on photography works. I found there to be a big lack of photo exhibitions in Sydney and I simply wanted to see more photo work. Towards the end of 2018 I visited Tokyo and got the chance to meet Yumi Goto who is someone I really admire. We had a brief talk about the space and that it's good to focus on one thing to really learn about the medium. That talk solidified the idea of making the shift. I guess the main difference is that the work is viewable 24/7, you’re out on the street and it's up to you to interact with it. :)
There is a real sense of support from the community at openings, I remember one neighbour bringing out baked goods, the regulars for art beers, chickens running about on the street and Bob on the roof taking photos. This causes a bit of a scene on the street. Can you tell us about any haters? and what are bobs photos like?
Haha big thank you to the next door neighbours for always being supportive and bringing out food to us :) It's always really heartwarming running into the neighbours and hearing their views about the space. I haven’t really experienced any haters from it yet - probably a few annoyed drivers trying to get past whilst on an opening night, but fuck them - everyone usually hoons around that corner, its nice to see that they have to go slow. I believe it was for one of your openings that dad jumped on the roof. I haven't actually seen those photos yet, but I recently discovered quite a lot of photos he took when he was younger and they’re great.
Bit of a DIY guy hey ? you also installed your own darkroom set up in your home, what were the origins of getting into this? and struggles you had having access to darkroom before having your own?
I enjoy jumping on the tools, I might not know what I’m doing half the time... but that's alright! I think I reached a point with my work where I was bored and disconnected from it and thought the darkroom would be a good road to go down to learn and explore more ideas - especially putting in the conscious effort to shoot b/w with the mindset of developing and printing myself. It’s opened a new way of looking at my work, and opened my eyes to the fact that photography is a very physical medium and needs to be printed. My old art teacher from highschool is a big legend and would let me access the darkrooms at school after I graduated for a few years (thank you), but then I slowly couldn't be bothered travelling out to Homebush for it. There was a period where I was sneaking into the darkrooms of a Uni for a little while, developing and printing work, and then one day I flew too close to the sun and used up all the developer they had and the art teacher was with another student and asked if I went to school here yadda yadda - they were really chill with the whole thing, just wanted me to let him know beforehand in the future, but that was the last day I went there HA!
More importantly, what have you been listening to while printing?
It varies a bit depending on my mood. Heaps of NTS - (specific shows include: Perfect SoundForever, Tommasi, Music 4 lovers… to name a few. They're sort of along the lines of folk, prog rock, jazzy vibes). a lot of dub/reggae, Memphis hip hop, blues/country. BLEUS also is a solid mix series . Limbs akimbo on FBI. revisiting a lot of Dean Blunt lately. Then sometimes I hone in on very fast Hitech when I want to get shit done.
This year you had your first solo exhibition - Can you tell us about that? Where was it? How was the experience? Etc
Yea and it was kind of a big dream come true! The project is: The last jar of rosehip jam (2017-now) and exhibited at MAMA (Murray Art Museum Albury). I started the project as a means to communicate certain emotions/ thoughts to my family - and to finally share it with them in that space meant so much. A part of the project looks at our journey to visit Nana in Albury so to exhibit it there was the icing on the cake as it's the final destination of the trip. Working on the show probably consumed me for around 6-8 months and it absolutely rinsed me - thinking about ideas I wanted to put forward, talking about it with others (which was super beneficial), cutting down the work from 5 years of material, printing/scanning, research, layout, framing, stressing about the financial side and the list goes on… It was a hectic experience as I can be quite time stressy and wanted things to be perfect - when I walked in 2 days before the opening to have a look at it - my heart was so full and over the 2 months it was up, I was lucky to spend some time with it, which was so surreal and emotional to see something I’d worked so hard on come to life and exist. I was really happy with how it translated to real life from my bootleg indesign layout. The exhibition fell in line with rosehip season - at some point during the show I spent a week down there making jam with Mum and nana. We got quite a lot out of this year's batch and got to share a few jars with the museum for the community morning tea they put on. It was really sweet to be able to share this labour of love with members of the community - most who have never tried rosehip jam. I can’t thank Vasili and the beautiful team at MAMA for all the help and opportunity.
Lastly, can you mention some favourite Books, Artworks, Exhibitions, Artists, Photographers, Writers, Riders, Climbers, Beat Makers, Mixers and any other people you're drawn to doing shit?
I’ve kind of had a massive break from everything photography since the MAMA show, and only just getting back into it- however:
Feiyi Wen. - Katrin Koenning (big fanboi). - Raymond Meeks. - Reminders Stronghold - ‘Not Standing Still’ exhibition @ Monash gallery of Arts (Wish I got to see it in person :(.) - ‘But Still, It Turns’ Exhibition - Deana Lawson - Daisuke Yokota. - Harry Culy. - XiaoXiao Xu. - A lot of photography coming out of China and Japan (both old and new). - D.Grade <3. - Flora. - Cretin. - 1love. - S.boi. - HUNGRY - Fabrics. - Huntsbury hot boys - Christopher Moltisanti. - The Church gig.
Big up yourselves ;3
