Margins
Paul Seawright's landscape photographs from 1997/98 - of the sites of fires burnt on the edges of Belfast housing estates, cages around pubs and walls between communities - began an investigation into peripheral and marginal territory. In this new work he moves away from the overtly political to examine tracts of unspecified land that lie on the edges of many cities. They are uninhaited spaces, places beyond everyday encounter. The police often turn to these places, searching them for missing persons, clues or for criminal evidence. Seawright too is conducting a search on the outskirts of European cities; under roads and bridges, on the edges of sprawling housing projects and industrial buildings, in roadside lay-bys and where the forest borders the city and its light spills over into the darkness beyond. Here amongst this undefined territory we discover a malevolent landscape that begins to touch upon our unspoken fears and anxieties.
From Source Issue 21 (1999)
