The Arts & Culture Journal

Freelance photographer Alex Grove talks to Fallyrag about his latest collection - ‘A Modern Inconvenience.’

‘A Modern Inconvenience’ is an urban portrayal of capitalist fall-out that manages to skilfully illuminate problems in their natural environment; a dichotomy of nature and the man-made. Alex’s photographs are a permanent record of more the seedy consequences of capitalism, which unsurprisingly the business community are keen to conceal.

In his own words:

“I have found myself compelled to photograph abandoned household appliances that seem to hide everywhere within the human landscape. Fly-tipping in back alleys, skips, and side streets; all home to disused electronic goods, which beg passers by to take them away in order to just save their previous owners a trip to the dump.

“I like to produce series of photographs that evolve from images I become naturally aware of. This collection started when I took a picture of an abandoned TV and on the same day came across several others. I soon realised they are everywhere; it seems television are set wild when they have outstayed their welcome. Perhaps due to the changeover to digital, there seems to be an outbreak of them at the moment, forcing them into redundancy and onto the streets. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were breeding.

“I want to show the sense of tragedy in these artefacts now that they are no longer the Mod Cons. A television set left out in the rain will never show a program again and you can’t wash clothes in a rusty machine. Left to the world, these boulders of plastics, metals and machinery are evidence that we are the consumer and we have consumed, with scant regard for the repercussions.