Playing Fields, © Gregor Schmatz, 2014, digital c-type prints
This on-going series investigates the important place sport occupies in culture. Youth sport clubs prepare their team for more than exercise and endurance, they manifest cultural structures and norms. Sport reflects culture and teaches it. Analyzing sport serves as a gateway to the topic of competition, individuality and community. As primal as sport can seem it is also as artificial as our everyday life. There are unwritten rules, and rules that cannot be broken without consequence. There are expectations of the individual as well as the group. Social skills are refined and individual strengths are channelled to serve the goal of the group. What happens on playing fields is a ritual, which simplifies and represents complex cultural foundations.
Gregor Schmatz takes a step back with his photography and offers an analytical perspective of his subject matter. Trying to see the ‘big picture’ is perhaps a result of his international background, he was born in Germany but lived in Luxembourg until he finished high school and moved to Melbourne, Australia. Now he lives and studies in Edinburgh.
Check out the rest of Gregor's "Playing Fields" at the launch of the Place Exhibition on Monday 24 of March at Out of the Blue Drill Hall!
Follow Gregor here! www.gregoredgar.tumblr.com