Images of Elsewhere and Nowhere (2002)
Influenced by Will Self’s novel How the Dead Live in which Lily Bloom who has recently died, refuses to accept her death and ends up in Self’s own version of purgatory, a fictional suburb between Islington and Hackney called Dulston. This project is a response to Self’s story and written imagery. With these photographs I create my own Dulston. “I think I’m getting the point…I begin to appreciate the character of Dulston. Sure, the clumps of houses, flats, commercial premises, warehouses, used-car lots and light industrial units are the same as in any of any adjoining districts, but Dulston is even more characterless…Dulston is one of those districts you are always finding yourself lost in, rather than arriving at. It’s the place you wind up in when you overshoot your destination or take the wrong turn…I realise that Dulston must be as big or small as its beholders. It’s a hidden pleat in cities rolled up sleeve; an invisible flare flapping in it’s trouser leg; a vent in the back of it’s jacket. Presumably, if the living stray into Dulston they see nothing of its true nature. For them it’s merely a drive-by span of inattention, a glimpse of their speeding car warped in a showroom window – before they find themselves traversing Hackney marsh, or gawping at the Stamford Hill frummers, or heading into town. Dulston: you wouldn’t know you were there at all – unless you were dead.” How the Dead Live. Will Self. |
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