Desolate: Spaces Speaking of Nothing

This piece explores the subject of emptiness as experienced in the vacancy of public spaces. I worked in Toronto’s underground network of pedestrian tunnels and elevated walkways known as the PATH. I created these twelve distinctive images out of the blank, bland and homogeneous PATH spaces. To meet the challenge of representing ‘nothing,’ I focused on the formal aspect of the image. Lines and planes, edges and walls, light sources and reflections, are the formative elements in representing the spaces photographically. Each of my spaces is harsh and sterile with unnatural fluorescent lighting creating an overall alien environment. This series is influenced by the work of Yasuhiro Ishimoto, who depicts the spaces Japanese of architecture in an abstract manner. I was also inspired by Lynne Cohen who creates beautiful yet oppressive photographs of empty spaces which always point to the absence of people. In my series, details such as chairs, potted plants, warning signs, security cameras, trash cans, elevators, escalators and stairs are all used as markers of the possible presence of people. In Desolate: Spaces Speaking of Nothing I wanted each empty space to feel ethereal yet substantial, and to speak silently of the absence of humanity.

(2018)