Common Ground (2017)

For this work, I collaborated with writer Simon Guy to look at spaces where access is threatened. The portraits were made at a community centre whose future was uncertain due to squeezed public funding. Not far away, I photographed ‘no trespassing’ notices around a plot of scrubland. Assumed to be public for a long time, it had been abruptly fenced off by a private owner. The notices were vandalised as acts of protest. I placed the portraits and notices side-by-side to highlight the tensions, contradictions, and questions raised by different claims to shared space.

Published by Fast Foot Press:

A.J. Pretorius and S. Guy, Common Ground, Fast Foot Press, Lancaster, ISBN 978-0-9571922-6-3, 2017.