WASTELAND
WASTELAND
Photography & design: paula roush
Additional photographs: constantine tsapaliras (Fujifilm Instax camera photographs)
Format: Photozine
Pages: 24
Dimensions: 20 × 28.5 cm
Printing: Black & white laser print
Paper: Corona Offset 120 gsm
Binding: Unbound with colophon insert
Publisher: msdm publications
WASTELAND is an artist's photozine documenting one of the last post-industrial landscapes of the Lower Lea Valley in East London, photographed shortly before its disappearance through redevelopment. Produced by msdm publications, the publication explores the visual ecology of the terrain vague—spaces of abandonment, demolition, informal habitation and technological obsolescence that existed in the shadow of London's Olympic regeneration.
Photographed around the former msdm studio between Gillender Street and the River Lea at Bow Creek, the project records a landscape where artists' warehouses, roadside shelters, abandoned vehicles and accumulated urban debris briefly coexisted before demolition. During the final weeks before clearance, repeated visits to the site became a collective act of witnessing, shared with photographers drawn to the fragile beauty of these disappearing environments.
Combining documentary photography with experimental editorial design, WASTELAND reflects msdm's ongoing research into post-industrial landscapes, vernacular photography, urban transformation and publishing as artistic research. The publication forms part of a wider body of work investigating the Lea Valley as a site of memory, displacement and ecological transition.
