Encounters

Encounters – Encounters situates itself in Victorian High Plains, located in South-East Australia. Like many mountain ranges, the region entices curiosity and adventure, a land where seasonal trends work in conjunction with seasonal activities, and the cycle, until recently, remained uninterrupted, the 2019 bushfires evidence of this.

Hutchinson’s approach began with photographic investigations, a land previously observed from a close distance and one he assumed knowledge of. He set out on monthly multiday treks that spanned two years. His assignment was to capture the landscape’s seasonal transformation. In the early phases of this project, his trajectory quickly changed; in field-work, reading the environment through a Eurocentric seasonal calendar proved ineffective, and the encounters with the macro and micro-environment exposed a new unseen landscape. Weather conditions, previously assumed, shifted without notice, and the changing transformation presented a unique environment of uncertainty and fragility.

What began with an investigation into ecology and geology quickly became self-reflective; The publication two years in the making presents the findings from the project, each describing a macro or micro encounter of the environment, and as a complete volume, the climatic anomalies taking place within the diverse landscape