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Roger Ballen
Boarding House
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“It is difficult to explain this place except that I think it exists in some way or another in most people’s mind.” –Roger Ballen
These photographs are like images from a waking dream: compelling and thought-provoking, with layers of rich details, flashes of dark humor, and an altered sense of place. Blurring the boundaries between documentary photography and art, my work is both a social statement and a complex psychological study.
BOARDING HOUSE is a space of transient residence, of comings and goings, of people sheltered in a place they are using for their immediate survival. Basic and fundamental, the structure is furnished with objects necessary for an elementary existence, decorated with evocative drawings, and littered throughout with animals. Remnants function there as physical symbols of events that have occurred in the space; broken pieces of a functional reality exist as the leftovers of scenarios that have been played out there. The altered sense of place of this temporary abode creates a sense of alienation, which acts as a jumping off point for the imagination to run wild.
Bio
Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950. Since 1982 he has been living and taking photographs in South Africa.
His work is represented in many museums including Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Ballen’s work has been recently exhibited in numerous museums in Europe and the United States.
Related links
www.rogerballen.com
Editor’s note:
Comments are open on this essay… If you have any questions, feel free to ask Roger, he will be jumping in on the comments soon…It is with great pleasure that I present Roger Ballen on Burn…
… david alan harvey
8×10 moonlight photograph by Alejandro Chaskielburg, 2009 EPF recipient, from his essay The High Tide
we now announce on Burn our third annual Emerging Photographer Fund grant …for 2010 we are offering a $15,000. stipend for an emerging photographer to finish an ongoing personal project…the deadline for entries will be April 15, 2010….funding for the EPF comes from generous anonymous donations from our audience here on Burn to the non-profit Magnum Cultural Foundation…these are very specific donations to the MCF and are apart from the general subscriptions and donations to Burn….
this year we must set up things a bit different from the last two years…we have no choice but to have a $25. entry fee per submission….last year almost killed Anton Kusters and yours truly with the almost 1200 submissions….we cannot do that again…this year the $25. will be well spent…we will be using a program called Slideroom to facilitate you entering and us having the grant juried in a first class manner…..with Slideroom you open a free account and you will literally have a “room” where you can work on your edit for the next two months…i.e. put in one picture today, four next week, change your edit, play with the pictures, do whatever you want, then hit the submit button on or before deadline..if you decide not to enter after all the editing etc., then simply do not hit submit and you are not charged…the system is way easier to use for all than anything before and makes it possible for us to have a wide prestigious jury (to be named soon) who can view your work at their leisure online and yet be communicating with each other all along…
so the financial breakdown is: $8. will go for this Slideroom program which is of great benefit to all of us (this is their fee to us per entrant)…$5. will go to a Haitian relief agency…and $12. will go to cover our admin costs for the EPF at Burn,and the costs associated with creating a sophisticated slide show and presentation of finalists and winner at this summer’s one time special Burn/Look3 event for emerging photographers in June…we realize this fee may keep some from entering….we considered this and came up with the lowest price we possibly could and still be able to continue this grant program at all …we do not feel this fee will discourage any serious entrants…
all details for the correct entering of project essay submissions will be seen under EPF 2010 in the right hand column of Burn…
i look forward to seeing all the new work….
-david alan harvey
The EPF grant 2010 submission link:
http://burn.slideroom.com
Deadline for submission: April 15, 2010
The winner will be announced in June, 2010
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