Shadowlands: Light and Darkness on the Urban Edge

In Nigel Dawson’s photographic mutations of the everyday, human ghosts lurk within shadowy high-rise housing estates, derelict buildings and industrial edgelands.

admin February 12, 2021

PHOTOGRAPHY: Nigel Dawson

MUSIC: Chris Ashton

LOCATIONS: London & Sheffield

Unofficial Britain is proud to present a selection of films by artist Nigel Dawson, sound-tracked by Chris Ashton.

In these stark, photographic mutations of the everyday, human ghosts lurk in the shadows of high-rise housing estates, derelict buildings and industrial edgelands.

Dawson explains: “The location of these photographs include Hackney, the Lea valley, and various other areas in London and Sheffield. The images are manipulated in post processing, using a technique I have perfected over many years.

My love of the urban landscape started when I was at school. When I got home, me and my friends would go out into the local countryside and inevitably end up in derelict buildings. That smell of damp and my sense of the passage of time in those places – it put my imagination into overdrive.

I do not see my art as concerned with place in a topographic sense. Instead I want to evoke the dynamic of the environment… its spiritual and physical energy… its fundamental mystery. The haunting soundtracks to these films are as important as the images themselves, and are composed and played by Chris Ashton.”

LONDON: THE DARK CITY