Barry Falk

I am a self-taught photographer based in West Sussex. I photograph ‘Incidental Spaces’, places tucked away and neglected: edges of car parks, junk-filled garages, loading bays, abandoned spaces, vacant rooms, ransacked offices. These are the overlooked details of a city: architectural features which appear to serve no function. My images seek to capture an aspect of the city which is not willingly acknowledged. These places can be read as metaphors for loss and as such are suffused with a disturbed sense of self, what Freud referred to as the unheimliche: the familiar which has become alienated through the process of repression. However, when re-seen, photographed from a particular angle, in a certain light, these incidental spaces turn out to be resonant with association. The neglected and forgotten then becomes the fascinating and intriguing. They are related to the ‘Evocative Object World’, a title taken from Christopher Bollas's book, which refers both to Freud's theory of how dreams are constructed and to the rich object world that surrounds us.

I have also been working on a project titled 'sacred space/elegiac series.' These images utilise chosen locations to explore issues of mortality and evoke a sense of mystery, awe and foreboding. All of my photographs seek to turn the mundane into the intriguing and the quotidian into images of high psychic value. In being moved by very particular events of the day we are revealed as seekers and interpreters of our own identities.

Exhibitions • Heygate Estate – The Claremont, Hove Arts, Brighton Open Houses – Group Exhibition, 2011 • Internal Structures: Skeleton Series – Artists Open Houses, Brighton, 2011 • Internal Landscapes – Brighton Photo Fringe, Co Op building, Brighton, 2010 Brighton Open'11 text: • www.photofringe.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/O11_Tex... On-Line Exhibitions: • http://redsquaregallery.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/barry-falk-derelict-urban-spaces/ • urbanphotomag.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/five-questions-for... • www.nativepublications.com/

Selected by Deborah Bullen, Photoworks

http://www.fluidr.com/photos/51241173@N03/tags/yahoo:yourpic