║Sergio Belinchón ║

© Sergio Belinchóm, Untitled 8, from the series Berlin, an Archaeology, 2005

© Sergio Belinchóm, Untitled 8, from the series Berlin, an Archaeology, 2005

To see more of Sergio’s work click here

║ J. M. Ballester ║

© J. M. Ballester, Vista desde el hotel, 2005

© J. M. Ballester, Ciclista a contraluz, 2005

“If we cannot change the world, at least we can change the way we see it.”
José Manuel Ballester

“Ballester’s attitude towards his subjects is neither critical nor approving. It is observant and pensive. The stillness of the spaces he photographs is as palpable as the light that filters through them. It is as if the artist is putting the brakes on the speed of a technology changing so quickly we have no time to stop and ask where it is going and for what reason as we scramble to be the first to jump on the train before it has even departed. Norbert Weiner defined cybernetics as “the human use of human beings.” Today we are not so sure whether advances in technology necessarily mean progress or a new dark age characterized by dependency on a fragile system controlled by the few and used by the many.“
Nicholas Metivier

To see more of Jose’s work click here

║ Marrigje De Maar ║

© Marrigje De Maar, Tollonjoki, Wanja, Russia, from the series Home Made

© Marrigje De Maar, Venray, refter, from the series Time Out

© Marrigje De Maar, China-Zhaoxing, old farmer, from the series Rambles (people)

Time Out consist of pictures of rejected spaces. The structure of these buildings may still be sound, but the inside is considered “economically worn out”. These interiors seem no longer fit to house any succesful enterprise. For these buildings an anxious time of waiting has began. Hopefully somebody sees a new life for them and is willing to invest in their restauration. But time is running out and demolition is imminent.
For me there is a parallel to what happens with older people in our work force.

Home Made is about private (accepted) spaces.
Private spaces are intimate spaces. They form a safe environment, shielded from the outside world. People use their private spaces – consciously or unconsciously –as a way to express something about themselves. In this way these personal spaces can be seen as portraits. Self portraits created with the help of daily necessities, tactile memories and the embodiment of dreams.
Marrigje De Maar

To see more of Marrigje’s work click here

║ Oscar Palacio ║

© Oscar Palacio, Prefabricated Stairs, from the series Unfamiliar Territory, 2004

© Oscar Palacio, Suspended Log, from the series Unfamiliar Territory, 2006

To see more of Oscar’s work click here

║ Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre ║

.© Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre, Kraftwerk, Muldenstein,
from the series Eastern Germany industrial vestiges

© Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre, Bleichert Transportanlagen, Leipzig

from the series Eastern Germany industrial vestiges

“During the industrial revolution, factories were built with a great aesthetic concern since there used to promote the image of companies.
More than all others, Germans proved to be particularly ingenious and original builders.
Eastern Germany was one of the most industrialized area. Industries of every type were established, it resulted an extraordinary diversity of architectural forms.
With the Soviet occupation, all the industries, even most obsolete ones, were maintained. The society was like frozen.
Thus the reunification caused closing-down of a number of factories,
an economical crisis and an exodus of the populations.
Since, cities are in full urban refitting, but the landscape
remains strongly marked by monumental industrial ruins.”

More of their work can be seen here.

║ Daniel Mirer ║

© Daniel Mirer, Shea Stadium, Players Walkway, from the series ArchitorSpace, 2003

© Daniel Mirer, Shea Stadium, Office Hallway, New York 2, from the series ArchitorSpace, 2003

“The “ArchitorSpace” photographs display a specific interest and fears I have about the banality of spaces such as those of enclosed areas. These places are typologies of contemporary postindustrial architecture that makes the individual so displaced within the uncanny. They are heavy with absence yet entirely familiar and forgotten places. These deserted (non-sites) environments reveal no history or functionality. These deserted environments, are places that architecturally reveal no history or functionality but subconsciously pointing out the familiarity within the redundancy within architectural space. Tunnels, corridors and waiting rooms that exist in the images are the enclosed public arenas in which you are exposed to the scrutiny of others. In addition, they reveal an emptiness that is particularly banal, and commonplace that has become a promenade state of mined in the post-industrial society.

I photograph these interiors from a direct, frontal point of view, at sufficient distance to include the entire space in its flat and melancholic state where the individual vanishes in the glare of fluorescent light. These are architectural portraits, in there seemingly a matter-of-factness, that demonstrate a primary function of the still photographic image: to record. They are spaces in which a room office or corridor is virtually indistinguishable from another, repetition and redundancy collapses into an architectural singularity. A subject who otherwise occupy these spaces are then engulfed into the void of here-could-be anywhere, into the monumental dissolution of space.”

Daniel Mirer

║ Ville Lenkkeri ║

© Ville Lenkkeri, The Collected Works of Lenin, from the series The Place of No Roads

© Ville Lenkkeri, Dead Domestic Plants II, from the series The Place of No Roads

“Two Russian communities on Spitsbergen have had their times of bloom. Now one of them is a ghost town and also the other one is running out reasons and will to exist. In this series these towns are studied subjec-tively as cases of risen and fallen utopias. Photographed on Spitsbergen 2003-. Work in progress.”
Ville Lenkkeri

To see more of Ville’s work click here

║ Michael Schnabel ║

© Michael Schnabel, Elephants/Rinoceri, Stuttgart, 2000

© Michael Schnabel, Monkeys, Stuttgart and Hannover, 2000

“German photographer Michael Schnabel’s large-format images of zoo interiors in Germany and Switzerland resonate with a minimalist beauty, which oddly emphasizes their mid-century modernist architecture.[...]
Like Elephants/Rhinoceri, Stuttgart, some of the spaces Schnabel photographed resemble indoor spas rather than cages. Some even have elements that suggest a posh lifestyle, such as an ornately tiled floor or wood slatted ceiling. In other pictures, even the metal bars form appealing, grid-like patterns.[...]
For one thing, there’s an overwhelming feeling of empty space, leading one to notice the conspicuous absence of the animals that are supposed to be living there. There are traces indicative of their presence–food troughs, bales of hay, wading pools, simulated habitats with logs and foliage. The photographs’ titles don’t give away what types of animals inhabit these spaces; one can only guess. Schnabel photographed in the early daylight hours when they were asleep. The stillness is soothing but unnatural, so you begin to wonder what it would be like to live there.”

Anne Martens

║ James Nizam ║

© James Nizam, Anteroom (pile of cabinets in room), 2007

© James Nizam, Dwellings #13, 2006

“James Nizam’s work reveals a fascination with the processes of change, decay, and reclamation within our built environment. His new series of colour photographs—shot inside abandoned houses slated for demolition—speaks eloquently about the booming real-estate market in Vancouver and the disappearance of modest, single-family dwellings from urban life. But his images also tell us something poetic about the relationship between people and the domestic spaces they fleetingly occupy.

The show clearly relates to Nizam’s previous series of chromogenic prints, shot inside the old Woodward’s building at night using found and ambient light. The images in Dwellings are also nocturnal and also employ a degree of ambient lighting. More importantly, however, the interiors are articulated by Nizam’s flashlight and caught by his camera’s extremely long exposure time. Essentially, the artist uses the flashlight like a brush, painting line, colour, and form into each scene. Some interiors are brightly and evenly lit, while others are draped in shadow. In others still, the flashlight outlines doors, windows, cabinets, and appliances, giving them an eerie glow.”

Robin Laurence

║ Richard Ross – Architecture of Authority ║

© Richard Ross, Guantanamo, Cuba

© Richard Ross, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia

© Richard Ross, Angola State Penitentiary, Angola Louisiana

“For the past several years—and with seemingly limitless access—Richard Ross has been making unsettling and thought-provokingpictures of architectural spaces that exert power over the individualswithin them.
From a Montessori preschool to churches, mosques, and diverse civic spaces—a Swedish courtroom, the Iraqi National Assembly hall, the United Nations—the images in Architecture of Authority build to ever harsher manifestations of authority: an interrogation room at Guantánamo, segregation cells at Abu Ghraib, and finally, a capital punishment death chamber.
Though visually cool, this work deals with hot-button issues: the surveillance that increasingly intrudes on post–9/11 life, the abuse of power, the erosion of individual liberty. The connections among the various architectures are striking; as Ross points out: “The Santa Barbara Mission confessional and the LAPD robbery homicide interrogation rooms are the same intimate proportions. Both are made to solicit a confession in exchange for some form of redemption.”
Book Synopsis

The full work can be seen here

║ Laurenz Berges ║

© Laurens Berges, Berlin – Karlshorts III, 1995

© Laurens Berges, Potsdam V, 1995

“Several images in the series record the intersection of architectural elements with the ground in harmonious if unspectacular compositions, pregnant with the implication of what might have occurred or still could occur there. In others, architectural elements enter into timid competition with nature, the separation of the two realms symbolizing the psychical compartmentalization of experience in general. Like Berges’ earlier studies of Russian barracks, these images derive their impact from inherent contradictions; where a quality of quiet permanence suffuses the abandoned interiors of the earlier series (initially constructed for occupation by German troops during the Wilhelminian and Nazi periods, the barracks then housed Russian troops, which, since the fall of the Wall, the reunification of Germany and end of the Cold war, have remained unoccupied), the photographs in this series demonstrate an almost epic grandeur in the ordinariness of their reality and a topicality in the mild outdatedness of their architectural detail. It is not coincidental that a sense of place derives from the confrontation of built and natural elements, that memory depends on the interplay of past and present and that both occur in conjunction with one another.”

Virginia Heckert

To read the full text click here
To view more of Laurenz’s work click here and here

║ Duarte Amaral Netto ║

© Duarte Amaral Netto, Growing Into

© Duarte Amaral Netto, Rumor

“In the new photographic series of works by Duarte Amaral Netto, the end of time seems near, doom and gloom awaits. Demolished office furniture in ruined interiors, by the hands of vandals maybe, or lvacated bya company now bankrupt or having moved to better locations. These photographs by Netto create a sense of nostalgia the seventies when all was still flourishing in that space.
Another series of works is about people and their relationships. In these images one gets the same emotional feeling as with the photos with the demolished office interiors. There was happiness once, but this has passed. Do the photos pretend that nothing is wrong with what we see: a party scene on a balcony but with guests standing on their own, a couple next to the swimming pool, sitting very close to each other but seemingly discontent. This is perhaps their one last effort at finding happiness, or resign themselves to a hopeless situation. Who knows…“

More about his work can be seen here and here

║ Shannon Benine (Chicago Project – part II) ║

© Shannon Benine, Gas Flare Pit, Westhope, North Dakota, 2007

© Shannon Benine, Cafe, Westhope, North Dakota, 2007

To know more about her work click here

║ Joseph O. Holmes ║

© Joseph O. Holmes, Ganmar Electronics (Bench #2), from the Workspace series, 2007

© Joseph O. Holmes, Dominic, Third Avenue Scrap Shop, from the Workspace series, 2007

© Joseph O. Holmes, C & H Auto Repair, from the Workspace series, 2007

© Joseph O. Holmes, Tony, Ganmar Electronics , from the Workspace series, 2007

“The Workspace project is my ongoing attempt to examine the quasi-private spaces people carve out of their public work lives. Such spaces represent a tug of war between personal expression and comfort on the one hand and the unyielding demands of work on the other. The long-term accumulation of the tokens of that struggle, over years or even decades, can be formally beautiful in a very human and touching way. The project is part of a larger series in which I ask friends and strangers to open up private spaces to my camera.
Because I document a space exactly as I find it, never arranged for the camera, the Workspace project is necessarily a spontaneous process. I can’t, for example, call ahead and explain what I’m after without inviting the destruction of what I hope to capture. Lately I’ve been finding workspaces by walking in off the street with camera and tripod and simply asking (though “simply asking” doesn’t quite convey the complex dance of explanation, skepticism, persuasion, and fascination that goes back and forth). What I end up capturing, then, turns out to be the work that was interrupted to answer the door.”

Joseph O. Holmes

to view Joseph’s full body of work click here

║ Brad Moore ║

© Brad Moore, Trini Circle, Westminster, California, 2006

© Brad Moore, Islands, Westminster, California, 2007

“These photographs were shot in modest, well-worn, suburban cities in central and inland Southern California. Built in the 50s and 60s, these cities provided a new home and future to a post-war population. While Southern California’s coastal cities flourish, cities in these inland counties struggle. Future prosperity and civic health seem to come primarily from growing ethnic populations, which are reviving and recreating these cities for their communities.
I grew up in North Orange County and attended school in inland Riverside County. After 25 years I returned, and was fascinated by their simultaneous decline and growth. I see these areas differently from places I have never been. Knowing what was, and now what is influences my approach. I’ve avoided traditional, documentary-style photography; instead I have photographed select buildings and shrubbery in primarily static, symmetrical compositions, reflecting change, irony and evolution.”

Brad Moore

║ Guy Tillim (South Africa – part I) ║

© Guy Tillim, Noverna Court, Paul Nel Street, Hillbrow, 2004
Jo’burg series

© Guy Tillim, Nomasanto’s room, Jeanwell House, Nugget Street, 2004
Jo’burg series

White residents fled Johannesburg’s inner city in the 1990s. The removal of the Group Areas Act foreshadowed a flow into the city of black residents and owners of small businesses seeking opportunities and better lives. Former denizens looked back in self-righteous justification at a city that was given over to plunder and mayhem. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, backed up by eyewitness reports and statistics. Everyone had their horror stories. (…)

The relationship between tenants and owners or their agents deteriorated with disputes over the state of the buildings, and in some cases resulted in unpaid rents and dues. The buildings started looking like fire hazards, and the City Council began closing on them for unpaid utilities.In between the needs of City Council and the aspirations of developers anticipating the bloom of an African city lies the fate of Jo’burg’s residents. The outcome will decide whether or not Johannesburg becomes, again, a city of exclusion.

Guy Tillim

║ Anthony Hernandez ║

© Anthony Hernandez, #31, from Pictures for Rome, 1999

© Anthony Hernandez, #9, from Pictures for Oakland, 2000

Some people ask, “What’s so important or compelling about taking pictures of such unpleasant subjects like city dwellers?” . . . My work may be beautiful or it might not be, that just isn’t what I am concerned with. I try to be open and face the city. . . . To me it’s not unpleasant or unbeautiful, it’s just life–which has to be threatening sometimes if it is going to be interesting.”
Anthony Hernandez

║ Anne Hardy ║

© Anne Hardy, Untitled I (cobwebs), 2003

© Anne Hardy, Cipher, 2007

“Anne Hardy’s interiors look aged, as if they were lived in or used for years and years in pursuit of some specific, perhaps obsessive aim, (…) and then photographed after everyone’s left. They are plenty of labeled cubby holes, cigarette butts, trophies, assorted plants, phone numbers scribbled on a wall – things that almost tell a story, but don’t quite. Like with a Cindy Sherman still, you can’t help but try to put the narrative pieces together. The best part is, they don’t exactly fit.”

Amy Karafin