Dim Mirror is an installation that complicates the relationship between photography and sites of tourism. In this intervention Pushkinsky Cinema and the stairway connecting it to Pushkin Square become the postcard for a printed blue-skies snapshot of the square itself. This process of printing on architecture fragments the image and the cinema complex is made to resemble a broken mirror. The seemingly self-aware public square prompts the viewer to re-consider how they understand and move through their local hangout.

Opening up a dialogue between art and architecture, Hewson’s large-scale installations question the nature of our relationship to civic spaces. He has primarily used digital print to accentuate, distort and mirror existing features of a location – such as a museum, bridge or church – in order to amplify the viewer’s experience of that environment and challenge their perception of the space. His work explores ways to extend our physical understanding of the built environment through site-specific artworks.

Mike Hewson is a New Zealand artist living in New York City. He received a B.E.(Hons) in Civil Engineering from University of Canterbury in 2007 and is currently a Columbia University MFA 2016 candidate in the Visual Arts program.