Cauchi wins year in Berlin

Wanganui photographer Ben Cauchi is heading for the Black Forest and the tunnels and bunkers of Berlin later this year.

He's been awarded the 2012 Creative New Zealand Berlin Visual Artists Residency at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. It starts in September and lasts for a year.

Cauchi is extremely happy at the prospect.

"Germany in particular and Berlin specifically are places that I have always hoped to get to one of these days, so to be looking at a whole year in Berlin is quite fantastic," he said.

He and his artist wife are based in Wanganui but have been away a lot in the past year, with a trip to England and artist residencies in Wellington and Auckland.

While in Berlin, Cauchi intends to work on a project called One's Own Grey, referring to the colour that people perceive in absolute darkness. Apparently it's not black but a uniform dark grey. He thinks it will fit well with his visual exploration of Germany's past.

Since 2002, Cauchi has been mainly using 19th century forms of "wet plate" photography to make his images. He sources hard-to-get chemicals, and often each shot creates just a single image.

"I prefer the alchemical nature of those processes, where you're never sure when an image that you're looking at was made."

Those techniques give his pictures an antique and mysterious aura, which often matches their subject matter.

Cauchi has an interest in history and studied photography at Wellington Polytechnic, graduating in 2000.

After that, he made many visits to Wanganui to see shows at the McNamara Gallery, "New Zealand's only real photographic gallery". He made friends there and he and his wife bought a 1920s gospel hall in Koromiko Rd four years ago and moved in.

He's now just returned from a three-month artist residency at McCahon House in west Auckland. His The Lunar Apogee show - images taken during the residency - is up in nearby Lopdell House.

More of them will be showing in Wellington's City Gallery in October, and he also has shows in Sydney's Darren Knight Gallery and Wanganui's McNamara Gallery this year. He is an award winner, with work collected in New Zealand and Australia.

His wife, Angela Lane, paints miniatures. She has a show in Palmerston North next month and is also preparing work to take to Australia.