When Matthew Hayes isn’t standing in front of a classroom, he’s behind a camera lens.
Hayes is a sociology professor at St. Thomas and has a photography exhibition on display at the Fredericton Playhouse Annex Gallery.
Fredericton a Green City display the city’s parking lots that don’t get much use. The exhibition opened Friday and runs until Nov 29.
“People at STU I talked to encouraged me. Brad Cross, of the history department, showed me a photo of an intersection in early morning that was empty. I had already taken a few photos at this point. I realized that there is a lot of infrastructure not being used,” said Hayes.
Hayes has a political agenda as well. He was a candidate in the mayoral race earlier this year, losing to long-time mayor Brad Woodside. Hayes said he’s interested in what goes on in the city.
Hayes said it’s costly to operate all of the traffic lights in Fredericton, when they are scarcely used. Many roads and parking lots sit empty most of the time, but the city spends money to keep them operating.
“Roads like Brunswick Street are only used a couple hours a day during rush hour traffic. It sits mainly empty the rest of the time. You sit and wait at the lights and there isn’t a car in sight. It costs a lot of money to have roads and traffic lights that aren’t being used. They are sources for interesting potential and a way to question urbanism in Fredericton.”
His exhibition was never meant for a gallery. He thought his photos would inspire some discussion amongst friends, but not be hung on a wall attracting a crowd.
“I never really thought about making it a gallery thing. I mostly just thought I would have a few friends over, we would talk about the city of Fredericton, I would show them the pictures and that would be it.”
Hayes said his inspiration was walking to Sobey’s to buy groceries through the parking lot behind Gallery Connexion on York Street, stating that, “empty parking lots are extremely ugly depressing things to look at.”
Parking lots at the Regent Mall, Knowledge Park and various ones on Prospect Street are examples. For a small city, many residents have cars and drive from point A to B, but for the majority, they go unused.
Hayes said that empty parking lots are not the only things that represent Fredericton nor do they represent the feeling of Fredericton. There are lots of other things, like the lovely fall trees, that show what a nice city Fredericton is.
“Empty parking lots mark our city. I don’t think that there is anything bad or ugly about this as other cities also have this problem. It is more or less a question of what potential these spaces have.”
In an artist statement hanging beside his exhibit at the Playhouse, Hayes stated that, here in Fredericton, there are minimum parking requirements unlike bigger cities.
Hayes remembers living in London, England in 1999 and going to the Tape Museum, now called the Modern Tape Museum. There he saw a photography exhibit on a pharmacy from 1984.
“Pharmacies haven’t changed much since then, but it certainly is a different pharmacy than that of the one my grandmother knew and what my grandchildren will know.”
Hayes left the exhibition realizing that every space is like a museum.
“It’s an interesting idea way to draw attention to something and makes you pause and think. This makes it appear strange and weird.”
That was Hayes’ goal with his exhibition. Parking lots are a space in our city people see every day. Hayes wanted to take something average and familiar and make people feel differently about them.
“Art is not its ability to represent reality. Art in general is a way to draw attention to things we take for granted and make them strange and foreign. That’s what I tried to do here with my exhibit.”
Since there is no shortage of empty parking lots, Hayes said the photos weren’t hard to compile.
“On my way from point A to point B I documented this stuff. Having the idea came from my own experience, conversations about what is liked and disliked about Fredericton and my imagination.”
