Australian photographer Brad Rimmer completes a trilogy with Nowhere Near. Over the past 20 years while traversing the Western Australian Wheatbelt photographing the series Silence (2009) and Nature Boy (2019) he noticed how many small, isolated community halls had disappeared. Towns where populations peaked in the 1970s have either disappeared or become desperately depleted of youth and opportunity. Their halls which once brimmed with life and were central to the district now lie destitute, some repurposed, others decaying or even demolished. Only silent echoes remain of the dances and wakes, the town meetings, amateur theatre, and weekly picture shows. And honour boards that roll call the local lads whose blood was shed on foreign soil hang in lonely silence. Poems by award-winning John Kinsella augment the poignant reminders of the past as Brad Rimmer focuses on what remains.
Brad Rimmer is an Australian photographer based in in the City of Fremantle. His trilogy of photographic series (Silence, Nature Boy and Nowhere Near) take him back to the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia where he grew up. Probing at how past experiences and emotions shape us, these series evoke sounds, music, smells, colours, shapes and the tiniest details to trigger cinematic recollections in still photography. Rimmer is an active member of Art Collective WA.