This year, The International Photography Awards received 14266 of submissions from over 165 countries, and is pleased to declare that Mark Purdom was awarded Honorable Mention in Special - Night Photography for the winning entry Gas Station #3 23/3/17.
Artist Statement: ‘If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.’
The French anthropologist Marc Augé, in his influential book Non-Places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, cited examples of transient “non-place” as including airport lounges, supermarkets, shopping malls, and service stations etc.
In the work Gas Station #3, 23/3/17. I have attempted to abstract the building from its surroundings, to heighten the disconnect from place to non-place. Often in my work, there is a tension between what the photographs describe and what they reveal. I am exploiting the potential of photography’s indexicality - when it is at its most factual, is often when it is most obscure.
Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Anthropology of Supermodernity, 1995, Verso.