Barriers, Residue, Lost Futures

These images came together gradually, with no rush or set goal. They grew out of walking, lingering, and letting spaces stay unresolved. What you see are not events, but traces left behind—signs of use, habitation, and intention that remain after meaning has faded. Fences, windows, barrels, cars, water, and walls each act as thresholds instead of main subjects, keeping the viewer in a state of suspension.

Here, photography is less about capturing and more about tuning in. The camera senses what remains, instead of showing what stands out. Vision is often blocked by wire, glass, branches, or grime—not as a mistake, but on purpose. These barriers slow down the viewer and remind us that access is never simple. The images do not open doors; they show where doors once mattered.

This work quietly connects to Sophie Calle’s use of distance, watching, and holding back, where absence becomes a kind of presence (Calle, 2003). But unlike Calle’s stories, these images avoid chasing answers or revealing secrets. The viewer’s gaze is involved but left unresolved, staying at the edge of understanding without clear explanation.

These images also intentionally avoid the decisive moment linked to Henri Cartier-Bresson (Cartier-Bresson, 1952). Instead of seeking perfect timing, they embrace delay, misalignment, and hesitation. Blur, blockage, and underexposure—usually seen as mistakes—are used on purpose to resist spectacle and certainty. Nothing happens, but time still moves forward.

This atmosphere is shaped by Mark Fisher’s writing on hauntology and lost futures, in which spaces are charged by futures that failed to arrive (Fisher, 2014). The environments pictured here are not ruins, but they are no longer fully operational. They exist between memory and forgetting, producing unease without nostalgia. The future does not announce its absence; it simply stops appearing.

This work acts like a quiet kind of magic. It does not summon, but listens. It does not reveal, but leaves traces. A broken lens set at f/2.8 becomes a ritual limit, with the aperture left open to uncertainty. Meaning is held back, letting the viewer finish the story. What is left are barriers that do not fully block, windows that do not fully open, and reflections that never settle. The ritual never ends. Something always lingers.