True Fictions from an Unreal City
by Polly Tootal
The liminal zones of East London are constantly changing and appropriated, and as such they show clearly how contemporary geopolitics and economic factors shape the environment. From retail parks to chemical factories, the landscape here is shaped for human consumption, dominated by boundaries and borders, and kept under constant surveillance by security guards and cameras. It is a world that exists on the fringes of what we interpret as place, where alienation and control rule. By focusing on this area, these images investigate the nature of the ‘periphery’, deliberately using non-specific locations to conjure unsettling anxieties and hint at both our fragile contemporary condition and dystopian possible future.
Words by Diane Smyth
