Gold Coast, Australia
Once touted as both the crime capital and the tourist capital of Australia, the Gold Coast is a place built on contradiction. Originally a straggly and volatile stretch of coastline, it was rebranded in the mid-20th century by real estate developers eager to seduce investors, retirees, and holidaymakers. During the 1960s and ’70s, a vast network of canals was engineered to create the illusion of luxury waterfront living — an ideal lifestyle sold with sun-drenched ease, despite the bull sharks lurking in the shallows. This uneasy relationship between paradise and peril is most visible in the local news cycle: a surreal oscillation between million-dollar property listings and stories of corruption, violence, and decay. State government scandals in the ’80s and widespread property scams in the ’90s cemented the Gold Coast as a destination for Australians looking to reinvent themselves, particularly those with reputations best left behind.
I lived in this city for 17 years. During that time, my friends and I witnessed everything from rape to stabbings against a backdrop of racism, drugs, extortion, yachts, and mansions. But the true insidiousness of this place was not just in the crime itself, it was in the denial. Cloaked in sunshine, endless coastline, and the aesthetics of a predominantly white, aspirational middle class, the Gold Coast became a masterclass in the art of pretending everything is fine. Just as we recognise broken windows and housing estates as visual shorthand for danger, we also accept icons of safety - swimming pools, manicured lawns, — as assurance of wellbeing. The Gold Coast exemplifies how deeply these visual cues insulate our perceptions. Safety becomes a performance, a curated façade. So long as it looks okay, we’re meant to believe it is okay even as things break down quietly beneath the surface.
This series of images is a study in that dissonance: a place where the weather and the architecture lie. “A sunny place for shady people,” the Gold Coast is a mirage of tranquillity built atop a foundation of opportunism, denial, and image management. This is a portrait of a place obsessed with lifestyle and untouched by conscience, challenging our perceptions of safety and danger within the architecture of our built environment.
SEE THE BOOK
Winner of the New York Photo Festival book prize for 2014
Winner of the Encontros Da Imagem book prize for 2014
Finalist for Photobook Melbourne's Australian Photobook of the Year 2015
Finalist for the CREATE Award 2015
Finalist for the Guernsey Photography Festival Prize for 2015
Nominated for Prix Pictet 2015
Listed by Flak Photo, Lensculture, Voices of Photography, Mark Power, Asia Pacific Photobook Archive and Self Publish Be Happy in their top photobooks of 2014