They’re worlds connoting dreams. Or, more likely, nightmares.
These imagined places are the setting for scenes that most regard as dark, disturbing, unsettling; they’re macabre, uncanny, potentially frightening. Funny, too, although you might hold your laughter in certain company. Unavoidable to notice is the bleakness, the despair, the uncomfortable weirdness that pervades his photographs and videos, too.
Immersed, 2016; Photographs Roger Ballen
Photographs Roger Ballen
Photographs Roger Ballen
All these feelings are rooted in actuality, inspired by people encountered and places explored. “It’s not just a fantasy trip that I’ve had over the years,” he says, “but real experiences with real people in difficult places, violent places, chaotic places, places on the margin that left a deep impact on me.”