Susan Dobson’s recent body of work,
Retail (2008) continues her exploration
of architecture and land use in
the suburban landscape. In this work,
she examines the makeshift nature
of retail architecture and consumer
culture’s dependence on the automobile.
The series of large, colour inkjet
prints depict franchise retail outlets set
against optimistic blue skies and vast,
deserted parking lots. The structures
are digitally masked with an asphalt
colour. The resulting large gray boxes
highlight the unimaginative and provisional
designs of big retail stores, while
the empty lots, stripped of cars (and
hence of purpose), are transformed into
urban wastelands. Dobson’s images
foreshadow the future of temporary
architecture and of rampant consumerism
during a time of economic uncertainty
and growing environmental
awareness. Seen within this context,
writes Robin Metcalfe, “Dobson’s ghostly
big-box stores glisten like a digital
mirage, prescient images of a doomed
landscape.” The photographs describe
the future perfect – that which will
have been – an ominous future, cast
back in time.