Karl Halliday – Retracer | Naarm Melbourne Book Launch

Perimeter is pleased to present the launch of Karl Halliday – Retracer, the debut publication from June Meadow Editions, taking place in store at Perimeter Books from 3pm–5pm, Saturday October 17. As part of the launch, Karl Halliday will be in conversation with writer and curator Paul Boyé, with an artist signing and casual celebration with light refreshments to follow. We hope to see you there!

EVENT DETAILS
Perimeter Books
734 High St, Thornbury VIC
Saturday October 17, 2026
3pm–5pm

This is a free event, with no reservations required.

Please note that while children are welcome in the space, we are unfortunately unable to offer a 'kid-friendly' zone where kids can entertain themselves, and we require close supervision by parents or guardians while in the store.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Retracer moves through the world the way memory does – not in a line, but in returns. To retrace is not to arrive anywhere new, but to tread ground already walked, checking what has shifted and what remains the same. The debut publication from Naarm-based photographer Karl Halliday gathers fragments from the artist’s archive of images drawn from the ordinary furniture of a life lived and re-lived in photographs. The past not looked back on so much as reworked, carried forward, made to answer for the present.

Nothing is quite alone; everything is shadowed by what it recalls or replies. The road observed from the passenger seat, giving way to a path remembered. Collisions invite the eye to hunt for the logic joining any two moments, dissolving into a somnambulatory state of free association and open proposition. A retracing that erodes slightly each time it runs, like ground worn by repeated passage. What accumulates is less a story than a rhythm, a circular movement, returning again and again until the going-back becomes the subject. They are the humble repetitions that life turns out to be made from.

Interleaved throughout the book, an accompanying text by Paul Boyé acts as a loose guide through Retracer; offering points of orientation without prescribing a route. Printed loose and left unbound, its position can shift between sections, allowing words and images to meet differently with each arrangement.

Karl Halliday is a Belfast-born photographer and curator. He currently lives and works in Naarm, Australia.