Unpleasant Lands is a conceptual body of work that looks at how passive censorship effects our ability to understand fact and reason in a post truth digital age.

Censorship has changed. It is no longer the sole practice of governments and corporations, designed to redact information from fear of losing power and capital. In its new form it spreads misinformation, upending and discrediting traditional media and questioning established belief systems.

At its core the project uses the notion of a ‘Spiritual England’ or ‘Middle England’ to illustrate how political ideology can capitalise on the fears of select groups within the body politic. Using the troubling gaze of the anthropological photographers of the Victorian empire, alongside Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ as a framework, Unpleasant Lands communicates an internal conflict at the intersection of social constraint, morality and the digital space.

The subject turns the lens upon itself using the fallacy of ‘indigenous Englishman’ parodied as an amalgamation of an absurd class structure and exploits imagined social regulations that measure success to increasingly constricted standards. Unpleasant Lands is the point at which censorship becomes coercive propaganda in a digital realm that transcends borders and the accepted rule of law.

Using self portraits as performance alongside installations in order to build an alternative reality where fact and fiction converge to create the perception of an imagined perfection akin to the utopian promises of a religious sect or cult. The images hide authenticity behind the distraction of the naked body and the absurdity of outdated societal conventions.

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