Photofusion is delighted to present an exhibition of new photographs
by Steffi Klenz. Concentrating on the 'model' town Poundbury, Nonsuch
further develops her exploration of space and artificiality depicted in the recent series A Scape (2005). Positioning Nonsuch within the language of landscape and cityscape photography, the exhibition raises questions around space, control and ownership.
Poundbury functions as the expansion of the county town of Dorchester in Dorset. Built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwell and planned by the architect Leon Krier, the town owes its conceptual structure to the principles
set out in Prince Charles’ book 'A Vision of Britain' (1989).
At first glance, these seemingly unexceptional images could be mistaken
for a documentary portrayal of an ordinary town. However, Poundbury is photographed while empty, with no evidence of human presence, litter or personal details and so finds its drama and allegory in its physical and architectural presence. Through its depiction of abandonment, the town appears more like a perfect backdrop to a stage set before or after a performance. This gives the photographs a poignant reading in which the architectural space of the town contains a trace of an act that can generate stories.
Poundbury does not meet our usual considerations of a town, represented
by cultural heritage and the tastes and activities of Its Inhabitants. It is instead prescribed and reduced to neutral constructions – a building code of zero cultural or social weight. Cleanliness and order reign. It is a space in which
the master plan of utopia omits individuality and ‘grand scale’ but its unsettling atmosphere and feeling of 'displacement' provides a compelling hovering around the question of what might really exist beyond the surface.
Nonsuch asks the viewer to engage with the plausibility of the town of Poundbury as a ‘visual text’; to both decipher the significance of the place in
its bland depiction and to also unravel the human acts that might have taken place there. Although dealing with issues around cultural identity, boundaries and borders, this exhibition perhaps more fundamentally raises questions about how photography offers the viewer a space to explore our own sense
of place.
Steffi completed her MA in photography at the Royal College of Art in 2005. Her exhibition A Scape opened at the Andreas Wendt Gallery in Berlin last year and is being toured by Focal Point Gallery. Nonsuch will be featured in PORTFOLIO, Number 43, published in June 2006.
The exhibition is part of an ongoing programme at Photofusion to support photographers in the early stages of their careers. |
