Chittagong Steel and Mambo

The Fox Darkroom and Gallery welcomes emerging Melbourne-based photographers Kip Scott and Craig Adams with their new exhibition Chittagong Steel and Mambo, two complementary series of images examining the relationship between the Western World and those nations struggling to keep pace.

Titanic freighters, washed up ashore, their innards surgically removed and their rusted carcasses picked at for scraps of steel. Kip Scott’s images of the ship breaking yards of Bangladesh showcase an industry, a people, living off the discarded leftovers of the West. He seizes on the grandeur and scale, even in their disrepair, of these fallen beasts and the men searching for scrap metal like ants against the enormity of these hollow husks.

Adams’ images are far more intimate, placing the people of Tanzania up close. He explores the blurred lines between tradition, culture and social change through the vibrancy of life in the nation, his images popping with colour and texture as the people sing, dance and pray on the streets. With this collection being his first exhibition, Adams’ series was inspired by his grandmother and her tales of Africa, the wonderful landscape and tribal culture bleeding into his work and shaping his artistic tendencies.

Running now till Sunday, 27 May, Chittagong Steel and Mambo is a revealing insight into the other side of the world and the long shadow the West can sometimes cast.

Chittagong Steel and Mambo 
Fox Darkroom and Gallery, 8 Elizabeth Street, via laneway, Kensington
Till Sunday, 27 May 2018
thefoxdarkroom.com.au/chittagong-steel-mambo-kip-scott-craig-adams