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IN THE BORDER September 22, 2009

Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Photojournalism , trackback

In the BorderIN THE BORDER Photo Darren Clayton

Darren Clayton has been making photographic excursions into South-East Asia since 1998. While being well aware of the historically laden ethnographic aesthetic that he works within, his photography seeks to go beyond discourses of power and appropriation. These are images of collaboration. They acknowledge a humanistic ideal.

Clayton visited the thousand-year-old Preah Vihear temple on the disputed northern Cambodia and Thai border three times in 2008. His photographs are to be seen in a diaristic mode, as a narrative, one that tells a story as much about himself as the sitter. They attest to a state of ambiguity, of arbitrary but symbolically potent boundaries, fixed momentarily in the frame.

His dedication is evident in the patience and empathy that these images exude. His persistence in maintaining a relationship with his subject, in trying to converse through the lens and establish recognition in a liminal space, is apparent in every one of the 6×6 frames.

Far from a mechanical eye, Clayton’s waist-level camera becomes a “latent receptacle,” one that ultimately shares this relationship with the viewer. Above all, they tell a story of inclusion and the breaking down of barriers. These photographs dissolve the boundaries between art and photojournalism, between the mythologizing of self and the other; they succeed in transcending the traditions that they address.

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