© Polly Braden, Untitled, from the series Adventures in the Valley, 2004
© Polly Braden, Untitled, from the series Adventures in the Valley, 2004
“A collaboration between Polly Braden & David Campany
The River Lea runs from the Thames in east London up to Hertfordshire. Once a busy commercial waterway, it is now a nature reserve and leisure area. From the planned site for the 2012 Olympic Games it passes industrial estates, sports centres, new build homes and council estates.
Working together, Braden & Campany move between observational documentary and experimental stagings. There are poetic snapshots and theatrical incidents, naturalistic portraits and semi-fictional enactments. Responding to the strange beauty they find the photographs reflect the place but also reflect upon the processes and conventions of documentary at the same time .
Escape from the city; the reinvention of social spaces; the attraction of water; the meeting of different cultures; the persistence of nature. The project weaves together its motifs, building a complex description of the past, present and future of this half-forgotten thread of land.”
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N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 