Terrain Vague: Leon Daley (12th Sep - 8th Oct 2015)
‘Terrain Vague’ is both a photographic record and a celebration of the recently abandoned past.
In a series of short photo-essays, this exhibition takes the viewer on a flâneur’s stroll to seek out the boarded-up remains of the high street’s more prosperous past; on a leisurely drive to discover the abandoned stop-off points and watering holes along once busy low roads; and on an urban explorer’s excursions into the wastelands hidden behind the broken wire fences and faded Keep Out signs at the margins of our built environment.
In a world abundant with dereliction, ‘Terrain Vague’ celebrates the fortuitous juxtapositions of happenstance, takes pleasure in the riot of colour and texture resulting from decrepitude and dilapidation, and enjoys the chaotic beauty without beautification that erupts at the collision of disintegrating structures with the relentless onslaught of nature.
“Our age is the age of ruins, only a few of which are the well-manicured relics of antiquity we are enjoined to visit by the heritage industry. The majority of today’s ruins are no more than a few decades old. They are the result of de-industrialisation; changes in fashion; and the migration of populations which has left large swathes of urban and exurban environment depopulated or abandoned, awaiting their fate.”