BROWN BRICKS, GREEN LAWNS
2015
Exhibited at Belfast Photo Fringe 2015


‘Brown Bricks, Green Lawns’ is a photographic series which describes my experience of being a young foreigner during my first year living in the UK and my feelings about and disappointment with the ever repeating visual and cultural landscape of London. Even though I initially saw this as a very personal project, the emotions and atmosphere described in my images reflect not just my own perception, but that of many foreigners living in the city. Whereas London is often seen as a thriving and culturally vibrant city, I find that actually many places do not manage to excite and repeatedly fail to provide the cultural and visual diversity so many people believe London promises. With outrageous living costs, poor transportation and housing, London is a very tough place to live for many.


I am wandering through this place but there is no space for wanderers.

I look into a window, it displays warmth and security but I keep walking for I cannot grasp it.

The coldness of the brown bricks, the emptiness of the green lawns, I am trying to understand them but they appear yet so foreign to me.

This place makes you feel at home but all I can see is the same row of endless uniformity.

An old lady turns around, she doesn’t look at me, instead she looks at the camera in my hand and disappears, quickly behind another faceless corner.

Where is this place?

I don’t know.

I have seen it so many times before.

This emptiness.