Perth Voice Interactive

A Scantily-clad young woman hides between a wardrobe and wall while nearby a bare male foot pokes from underneath a wardrobe door.

The poster-sized photographs are two in a series for Aaron Bradbrook’s Borderland exhibition at the Perth Centre for Photography.

They were taken in his former home in Maylands where, luckily for him, the new tenants were old mates, providing continued access after his move to East Fremantle.

The half-awake, half-asleep world of hypnagogia, and CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe influenced the exhibition, with the images an adult take on “childhood imagination”.

Seen through the prism of hypnagogia a house is more than a place of shelter, becoming a realm of “pure imagination and infinite possibilities”, a “playpen where the inhabitants and their objects interact with one another,” Bradbrook says.

“Potentially a wardrobe can be anything you want, until you open it.”

Bradbrook took out the PCP’s Uncover awards, which were launched in 2010 to find and nurture young talent.

In the first year submission numbers were low but as word spread they soared.

“Last year we had around 200 applications,” director Christine Tomas says.

Winners are provided hanging space for an exhibition, along with mentoring and practical assistance.

“[And] the offer is also there to use our framing…we have a lot at the gallery,” Ms Tomas says.

Bradbrook, 24, has notched up some interesting photography experience while studying at Edith Cowan, spending time at Arizona State University and Pathshala South Asian Media Academy in Bangladesh.

A two-day bus trip took him out of Dhaka to a slum village on the south coast.

“I photographed and talked to people to tell their story,” he says.

The experience was “humbling” and helped him take stock of his own life.

“People live so fortunately in Australia—we don’t have a lot to complain about.”

Borderland is on until October 26, at PCP 100 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge.