“We are a landscape of all we have seen.”
Isamu Noguchi


Auto Portraits is a series that explores the mechanics of memory, its construction and the inherent obscurity that occurs via the deliberate obfuscation of Rubin's image making process, which considers our ability to register detail and form memory amidst the velocity of road travel. Walker Evans, in an essay titled 'The Reappearance of Photography (1931)' wrote: ‘The element of time entering into photography provides a departure for as much speculation as an observer cares to make. Actual experiments in time, actual experiments in space exactly suit a post-war state of mind. The camera doing both, as well as reflecting swift chance, disarray, and experiment.'

The notion of time entering into photography informs an embarkment into a broader study of South Africa's post-Apartheid landscape and the crucial role memory has played in shaping a Democratic society within a context of lingering structural imbalances.

Image titles are fragmented and fused with borrowed narrative in the hope of forging a context for these isolated moments of convergance.
Rubin's Auto Portraits are cognitive glimpses into such ephemeral encounters, and form a mapping of daily unintentional crossed-paths within the vastness of South Africa's scenic landscapes that often go unnoticed.

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