Pelči Manor
Shot over three days in the attic of Pelči Manor – a grand,19th-century, art nouveau structure in the small Latvian town of Kuldīga – the latest book by young Australian photographer Sarah Walkeroffers an ominous, curious and claustrophobic vantage on this historically loaded building. The site where Latvia ceded independence to Nazi occupation during World War II, today the building is used as a school for disabled children.
But amidst Walker’s dynamic, high-flash photographs – which were composed in the dark and reviewed after the fact – the cavernous interior of the building’s attic frees itself of historical shackles or signposts, morphing to assume the guise of an untethered, intensely psychological space. Here, endless geometrical forms stutter, shadow and repeat; Latvian graffiti, cigarette butts and dead critters litter surfaces; jagged objects and rusted tools gesture towards signs of violence; overlapping beams and joists form oblique visual puzzles. As such, Walker’s Pelči Manor feels like an obsessive thought or cerebration, looping and rearranging itself toward any and every possibility, searching for a solution that may never present itself.
Sarah Walker (b. 1991) is a photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. Her work includes the use of found imagery, video and sculpture. She is interested in using photography to deconstruct reality and examine ideas relating to the human condition. She was the winner of the inaugural Perimeter Small Book Prize 2018, and the resulting publication Second Sight won the Australia & New Zealand Photobook Award. Walker’s work has featured in various publications including Der Greif Guest-Room curated by Jörg Colberg, Phases Magazine, The Heavy Collective, The Latent Image, Terra Firma and the book A Place Both Wonderful and Strange(Fuego Books, Murcia). She has exhibited in Australia and abroad.
36 pages, 30.5 x 20cm, unbound softcover with elastic cord
Perimeter Editions 046
Edition of 250
ISBN: 978-0-9876371-8-5
Publication date: September 2019
Printed by Momento Pro, Australia
Published by Perimeter Editions
Melbourne, Australia
Editors: Justine Ellis and Dan Rule
Design: Sasha Taylor and Sarah Walker
But amidst Walker’s dynamic, high-flash photographs – which were composed in the dark and reviewed after the fact – the cavernous interior of the building’s attic frees itself of historical shackles or signposts, morphing to assume the guise of an untethered, intensely psychological space. Here, endless geometrical forms stutter, shadow and repeat; Latvian graffiti, cigarette butts and dead critters litter surfaces; jagged objects and rusted tools gesture towards signs of violence; overlapping beams and joists form oblique visual puzzles. As such, Walker’s Pelči Manor feels like an obsessive thought or cerebration, looping and rearranging itself toward any and every possibility, searching for a solution that may never present itself.
Sarah Walker (b. 1991) is a photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. Her work includes the use of found imagery, video and sculpture. She is interested in using photography to deconstruct reality and examine ideas relating to the human condition. She was the winner of the inaugural Perimeter Small Book Prize 2018, and the resulting publication Second Sight won the Australia & New Zealand Photobook Award. Walker’s work has featured in various publications including Der Greif Guest-Room curated by Jörg Colberg, Phases Magazine, The Heavy Collective, The Latent Image, Terra Firma and the book A Place Both Wonderful and Strange(Fuego Books, Murcia). She has exhibited in Australia and abroad.
36 pages, 30.5 x 20cm, unbound softcover with elastic cord
Perimeter Editions 046
Edition of 250
ISBN: 978-0-9876371-8-5
Publication date: September 2019
Printed by Momento Pro, Australia
Published by Perimeter Editions
Melbourne, Australia
Editors: Justine Ellis and Dan Rule
Design: Sasha Taylor and Sarah Walker