Finds 1 exhibition: found and located 1999-2010

This selection of works reflects my interest in archives and in found and located photographs. All of the work on show has been used in exhibitions or published:

Found in the Gutter: Bethnal Green, 1996, was originally shown as an archive exhibition at the Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg.

English Murders was shown as a large outside work at the 1998 Shoreditch Biennale and ‘Pictures from Robert’s was recently published in the Journal of Photography&Culture.

All the work has been enlarged from snapshots and Polaroid’s to change its context and enable new ways of looking. The photographs on show come from much larger series.

I am attracted to the unknown-ness of these images. The Bethnal Green photographs were part of a set of around 20 found by my daughter abandoned outside a block of flats in East London. It was raining as she gathered them up. They are all portraits of the same girl.

‘English Murders’ were discovered in the Daily Herald archive at the National Media Museum. Greg Hobson and I included them in our jointly curated exhibition The Dead as vintage prints. These were enlarged from the originals, printed as inkjets and tied to railings near Hoxton Square as part of the Artist and the Archive edition of the Shoreditch Biennale. The first set was stolen, while on show, this is the second printing.

Pictures from Robert’s is a selection from a set of almost 100 American snapshots which I bought in 2010 from Robert’s Rummage in Hastings. This shop is opposite my house and is a constant source of images, objects and ideas. Other collections I have amassed from Robert’s include a set of wooden Swiss Chalet musical boxes; storks made of horn and souvenir costume dolls from the 1960s.

I have consistently used archival, found and located photographs in exhibitions which I have curated since the early 1990s. They provide a counterpoint to work made professionally, or in the name of art. For me, they are satisfying mysteries.