Photographer walks on America’s wild side

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 19

Photographer walks on America’s wild side

By

JOAN BEGG

Christchurch photographer Stuart Page has photographed the Americanisation of New Zealand culture for some time.

But photographing the impact of American culture on New Zealand in New Zealand just was not enough. So in 1982, armed with an Olympus 2, some 100 rolls of colour slides, and a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant which covered the return fare and little else, Stuart Page, hit the streets of the United States, in search of the roots of Americanisation.

The results: A New Zealand tour of 40 cibachrome prints accompanied by taped sounds, and the recent publication of a book, “Stuart Page’s Artificially Flavoured Wild Side Walk.” The book is not the usual pictorial travel book. The 20 images, taken from sides that Mr Page shot in the United States, are hand-screen printed and the 60 pages of text are all his own.

The purpose of Mr Page’s five-month visit was to determine just to what extent American culture had affected New Zealand. He wanted to discover whether the negative aspects attributed to American society — the violence, rape of the land, alienation of people from their surroundings and other people and the proliferation of things artificial — did exist.

Stuart Page found they

did and his concern about the impact of the American culture on New Zealand was justified.

In the book’s introduction he writes that as well as being a travel diary, this book “carries a warning to New Zealanders that not only are we pretending to live in the United States while in New Zealand, but we are rapidly changing this country into an American colony.”

His book focuses on the seamier side of life — on the street life and night life of cities ranging from Los Angeles on the west coast to New York on the east

Mr Page said he wanted to get to the heart of the cities, take the proverbial “walk on the wild side” and record impressions of life on the streets and not the tourist traps. He tried to “get images of people totally surrounded by an environment where nothing is natural except for them.” The synthetic abounded. The adulation of the totally artificial was apparent especially in advertisements, he said. For example, butter made from synthetic non-dairy products was promoted as better than the real thing because it did not need refrigeration. Travelling on a shoestring budget meant that finding the street life was fairly easy. A lot of time in the cities was spent standing around in streets full of litter, talking to other loiterers, drinking beer and going to movies. “Zipping from the air-

port to big hotels” and taking in the i tourist havens like Disneyland, was not on the itinerary.

Accommodation was rarely a problem, with invitations to stay- issued by many of the people he met Several of them feature in the book

Stuart Page may have found his fears of Americanisation confirmed, but he did not find the “wild side” as wild as 'he had been led to believe.

In spite of toting a camera that was neither compact nor discreet Stuart Page only attracted friendly interest and the occasional request to take someone’s picture, - when on the city streets. That included walking and photographing in Harlem, New York, where, other New Yorkers warned that anyone with a pale skin would be beaten , up. Of some 3600 colour slides he shot only a fraction were good‘ enough, said Mr Page. The rest were tossed out. ' The writing'came later. Mr Page kept a diary while travelling, which was a collection of newspaper clippings, anil notes on what was on and where to go, as well as passages of thoughts and ideas. < It was not until he had returned to New Zealand, however, that he decided to write about his: visit. Following the example of the disciplined American author, William Burroughs, who would set aside a certain time each day to write, Mr Page sat down at a typewriter each night for 10 nights and

wrote. The writing flowed easier as the nights progressed. The piece was put away apart from a few readings by a few close friends. It was only after prompting by these friends, who thought the writing “was worth something,” that Mr Page decided to do something about it He used excerpts to accompany his photographic exhibition, and then edited the whole into passages for the book. The narrative is divided into subjects, such as L.A., Fear, and Loathing in L.A., N.Y.C. Graffiti, N.Y.C. Art Gallery, and N.Y.C Pizza. It is a fluid and entertaining account. Mr Page, who is also the drummer for the Christchurch band, the Axmin, started work on the book last year. He took a major role in its production, hand screen printing the photographs, designing the style and set of the text and marketing the 150 copies.