Which began as puzzles

Which began as puzzles, 2018, is a quote taken from the concluding essay from the photobook Evidence, 1977 by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, which had a major influence on this project.

Working with the theme of “surveillance” was, at first, one that I wished to subvert in some way. This was, in essence, an attempt to try to convey the feeling of being surveilled without resorting to the ‘conventional’ approach that would be surveillance of oneself or someone else. However, as the project progressed, I was attracted to the conceptual side that surveillance that has been explored before by conceptual artists.

I enjoyed the limitations on the format that I gave myself. This allowed me to hone skills in analogue and flash photography, the latter being something I have wanted to practice. I also gave myself the opportunity to shoot abroad, in the Musée de l’air et de l’espace in Paris.

On the conceptual side, I found the many different, sometimes abstract, approaches taken to the theme of surveillance stimulating. While I found many practitioners producing work I can only aspire to, like Trevor Paglen and Simon Denny, I also developed and built upon archaic, deliberate, crafted aesthetics. This had previously dominated documentary, and documentary-style, photography and is practiced by Cindy Sherman and Mårten Lange.