Ahead of the opening of Soft Barriers at Sanderson, we sit down with Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist and photographer Scott Cai to discuss the ideas, observations and personal experiences informing his latest body of work. Cai’s practice is rooted in close looking, drawing attention to the suburban edges, public structures and commonplace details that often slip beyond notice. In Soft Barriers, fences, road markings, doorways and traffic cones become less fixed than they first appear, shifting between the physical and psychological, the functional and the strangely poetic. The exhibition also extends this thinking into a small series of ceramic works, carrying Cai’s interest in boundaries and everyday objects beyond the photographic frame.
Scott Cai Q&A
The title Soft Barriers alludes to something both gentle and restrictive. What does the phrase mean to you, and how does it connect with the works in the exhibition?
To me, a barrier can be physical – a fence, a painted line or a closed door – but it can also be psychological: an idea about where we are allowed to go. In the photographs, structures that organise public space become less certain. A distorted fence resembles a portal; road markings warp into gestures; the faint outline of a doorway almost disappears into the surrounding wall. The barrier remains, but its authority no longer feels absolute.
That softening is where the title comes from. I am drawn to the point where rules, boundaries and fixed ideas can feel more fluid under close observation. I like to work and, in some ways, to live and think within that uncertainty because it makes room for possibility.
The ceramic cones carry this idea into three dimensions: a recognisable public barrier becomes a fragile vessel and, in a sense, is domesticated. I find that transformation quite charming.
What was the starting point for this body of work? Was there a particular image, experience or idea that set the exhibition in motion?
There was no single decisive image. Soft Barriers grew from my earlier work and the same desire to find something extraordinary within ordinary surroundings. What changed was the geography. After my previous exhibition at Sanderson, I travelled in the United States, and many of the photographs in this exhibition were made during those journeys.
Being away made me more alert to visual arrangements that recur across places, as well as to what is peculiar about home. Road cones had appeared in my photographs for years, but travelling made me realise how much Auckland seems to love them. Misplaced, abandoned and sometimes rather abused, they began to seem almost like characters. The ceramic versions came later, from wanting to give that everyday object a different life.
Photography is often associated with capturing or documenting what is visible, but your work explores what is often “unseen”. Where did this inspiration come from?
For me, the unseen is often something familiar that has slipped outside our attention. Vipassana remains a deep influence on me, even though I no longer practise it daily. It changed how I observe myself and relate to my reactions, teaching me to pause before I respond. That same attentiveness carries into photography. Walking with my camera helps me notice what I might otherwise pass by and find small surprises in everyday surroundings.
There is also a personal connection. Being seen and understood has always mattered to me, and perhaps that is partly why I am sensitive to things that sit at the edge of notice. I like the thought that attention itself can be a form of recognition.
There’s a strong sense of psychological as well as physical space within your photographs. How important are ideas of psychological space or the use of space to the way you make images?
Space is fundamental to making images, but I do not consciously separate physical from psychological space while I am working. I usually begin with a physical encounter and then turn inwards to consider why I am drawn to it. Curiosity guides the process more than any preconceived plan.
I sometimes think of painting as additive: it can begin with a blank surface and build from there. Photography, in my practice, feels subtractive. I begin with an environment full of information, then use where I stand and how I compose the frame to decide what remains. Cropping can flatten depth, alter scale or detach elements from the surroundings that would normally explain them.
The ambiguity created by those choices is where psychological space emerges. I’m interested in keeping the image open and leaving room for different connections and responses.
How does your own lived experience inform Soft Barriers? Do you see the photographs as autobiographical, observational or somewhere in between?
I see them as somewhere between the two. My method is observational, grounded in what is already present. At the same time, observation is never entirely neutral. What catches my attention is shaped by the experiences I bring with me.
I spent part of my childhood with my grandparents and later left China for boarding school in the United States. Moving between places and cultures from a relatively young age has often left me feeling “here but not here”, never entirely integrated into any one culture. I explored this feeling in an earlier project at Whitecliffe. That sense of distance continues to shape how I relate to my surroundings, even when they are familiar. For me, that perspective is where the autobiographical element enters the photographs.
Can you tell us a little about your journey to becoming a photographer—when did photography first become a meaningful way for you to understand or make sense of the world?
I think of myself as an artist first, and photography is my most instinctive way into making work. My route was indirect. I studied electrical engineering and worked as an engineer before studying Photo Media at Whitecliffe. That background made the technical side of a camera feel intuitive. It is, after all, a meticulously engineered tool. The more difficult question was why I wanted to make images.
At Whitecliffe, one of my tutors asked me to consider who the photographer behind my images was. That question bugged me in a productive way. It shifted my thinking from how to use a camera towards what I wanted to express through it.
Being represented by Sanderson has been another important stage in that journey. Working with the gallery to select, sequence and shape exhibitions has expanded my understanding of the photographs and how they speak to one another. It has also given me confidence that the work can matter to others and have a life beyond my private experience.
What do you have coming up next?
After Soft Barriers, I would like to travel more and, ideally, undertake an artist residency outside New Zealand. Staying for an extended period in another urban or suburban environment would allow me to move beyond my first impressions and let a place reveal itself gradually through photographs.
Alongside that, I want to attempt a full-scale ceramic road cone. The technical challenge of working at that scale is part of the attraction. My broader aim is to keep my photographic practice open to unfamiliar places and whatever they might teach me to see.
