41
41 Gold Coast Lifeguard Towers is a photographic project that uses the Gold Coast's lifeguard towers as a device to frame the urban context of the city and to show how we interact with and exist around the lifeguard towers themselves.
The project consists of 41 photographs, one per lifeguard tower, each embedded in the many contexts of the ever-changing Gold Coast foreshore and depicted from various aspects, in varying degrees, seasons and circumstances. From standing alone in nature, in the middle of tourist mecca Surfers Paradise, to sitting at the end of a suburban street, the lifeguard towers are an architectural character in the story of this city and the Australian beach vernacular.
Other than exploring this unique history and hoping to represent the proud history and culture of Gold Coast, Queensland and Australian lifesaving, in some ways, the project provides a reflection on our basic human need to feel at home within a greater ecological setting, on how a psychological bond is formed between place and person.