Scott Conorroe?s project began as a study of Canadian and US railways, and then the coastlines of these same hulking giants, finding that over time it became a portrayal of the Westernmost front of Western civilisation; a bloc of British Empire and Cold War superpower. Each work depicts a romanticised wanderlust perpetually out of reach behind whatever portion of post-industrial malaise and decay blocks us from it. We are forever approaching these grand vistas and roadways, capitalist infrastructure masquerading as an idealised sense of freedom. Comparable with Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld in such a tradition of exploring the cinematography of a peculiar North American ennui, Conarroe is brought to the forefront with this publication, undertaken in collaboration with the Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto. By Rail and By Sea is an important photographic statement, a kind of deadpan beauty that plays on themes of isolation, transience and the infinite.
