Façadier

This is a new series initially developed while on residency at CCI (Paris) in November 2024. My intention was to make work exploring the overlap of my previous structural engineering background and current photographic practice. The result is a new series entitled ‘Façadier’; a French word translating as facade maker. The work meditates on the facadafication of an urban landscape as a metaphor for self and society and the hidden forces and structures that lie behind it. It offers an alternative perspective on an often-romanticised location and is a deeply personal body of work. This work is in the early developmental stage and a work in progress. I’m hoping to undertake residencies in large European urban centres in the coming years to continue the work and develop it further. I’m initially focused on Paris and Berlin and hope to undertake residencies in 2025-2026. I’m contemplating expanding the project to include Amsterdam and Lisbon from 2027 onwards. The work to date is primarily photographic complimented with sound recordings, text, drawing’s and found objects. I intend to explore collage, audiovisual and scanned elements using a portable scanner to capture different textures and surfaces from cities.

“I’m tired but the city is awake, always awake. I feel anxious but I’m unsure if the city feels the same. Some spaces hold a resonance. Something permeates from behind the facade, surfaces reflect back feelings; whispers that feel familiar but remain somehow subtle and vague. Something has awoken in me. I feel a sense of something old but young. Something new but known from before. Something different but the same.”

“The dripping tap once an annoyance now brings familiarity as I sit in my studio gazing out at the chestnut trees holding onto the last of their leaves. The luxury of a view well received. I sit and look most days. I listen, I think, I draw, I think more. I’m not quite here but I’m here enough. The spirit and sounds of the city stir a new sense, something to come, something good maybe, maybe not.”