The Red Road flats in Glasgow have been a darkly iconic presence on the city’s landscape since 1964. A symbol of both the ambition and the dysfunction of the urban planning process.
Calum Clezy sources his images from the sudden, the accidentally, incidentally observed. He has often been drawn to the landscapes of the marginal – dead ends of various kinds.
Here, he sets about responding to the Red Road site by capturing the periphery. Using his distinctive close seeing, he has captured various objects in their abandoned state.
With exquisite attention, to position, light, subject, Calum presents tiny pieces of human detritus from around the building. A shoe, a ball, a child’s pacifier all speak to us via his transfiguring gaze. In his focus on these physically small details, he leads us deeper into understanding the hugeness of the flats themselves.
