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A Catfish Sleeps

A Catfish Sleeps is the second in a series of photographic works made at the edges of the Earth’s tectonic plates. This on-going research uses photography to investigate geological phenomena and associated cultural histories of the land, in locations where the Earth’s surface is regenerating, subducting or transforming. The resulting photographs combine the descriptive scrutiny of geological processes such as volcanic and seismic activity within the context of a human-cultural understanding of place and history.

A Catfish Sleeps was the result of a Pavilion Commission Award in 2009-10 to produce a new series of photographs in Japan. Awards were given to four international artists and the resulting work was exhibited at Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham in March 2010. The other artists were Tomoko Yoneda (Japan), Frederico Camara (Brazil) and Steffi Klenz (Germany/UK). The exhibition catalogue featured an accompanying essay about the series by David Chandler (then Director of Photoworks). The exhibition was also accompanied by a public presentation by the featured artists at the Djanogly Gallery and an artist talk at Nottingham University.

Continuing the inter-disciplinary nature of the previous series (Ultima Thule), A Catfish Sleeps extended Vaughan’s visual exploration of geological processes at the edges of the Earth’s tectonic plates. In response to geological, tectonic and seismic rupture probability maps – and an understanding of seismic histories of the region – the series used photography to study human responses to the underlying geology, as evidenced at strategically selected landscape and architectural sites in Japan. This included documentation of the ‘E-Defense’ earthquake simulation facilities at the National Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention in Kobe, for example.