Untitled I (The Architecture of Absence), 42cm x 30cm, Pigment Print
The Architecture of Absence
During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools became sites of constant reimagining, spaces caught between their established forms and emerging possibilities. Invited to work with students and document a school undergoing physical alterations, this series captures an institution in flux, actively reshaping itself in response to social distancing requirements and the ever-shifting realities of the crisis.
The images move between macro and micro perspectives, revealing both the institutional scale of educational architecture and the intimate details of transformation in process. Empty classrooms with their orderly rows of tables await reconfiguration. A worn piano stands ready to be relocated.
Architectural details, peeling paint revealing layers beneath, exposed radiator pipes, walls mid-renovation, tell stories of spaces being opened up and reconsidered. The religious iconography on the stairwell speaks to the institution's enduring foundations even as its physical form adapts. Textured surfaces and fragmented views emphasise the transitional nature of these moments, whilst geometric floor patterns ground the change in existing order.
These photographs capture the in-between, the moments when a building is neither what it was nor what it will become. This is architecture in conversation with crisis, spaces pausing to breathe before their next iteration. The work questions what it means to physically reshape learning environments in real time, to build the future whilst still inhabiting it.
This documentation captures not abandonment but active transformation, the material traces of a school community's determination to continue, to adapt, and to create new possibilities within unprecedented constraints.
Untitled II (The Architecture of Absence), 42cm x 30cm, Pigment Print
Untitled III (The Architecture of Absence) , 30cm x 37.5cm, Pigment Print
Untitled IV (The Architecture of Absence), 30cm x 37.5cm, Pigment Print
Untitled V (The Architecture of Absence), 42cm x 30cm, Pigment Print
Untitled VI (The Architecture of Absence), 30cm x 37.5cm, Pigment Print
Untitled VII (The Architecture of Absence), 30cm x 37.5cm, Pigment Print