In the photo book Enclosed Space, Simon Johannesson pulls back a curtain of metal and concrete. Here, networks of pipes and cables stretch between noisy machines as well as control panels and tanks. These rooms are not located in nuclear power plants or secret laboratories, but they play a major role in maintaining essential social functions.
Without our ancestors, these systems would not be possible; at the same time, we have inherited a number of negative consequences that we must live with. Johannesson is fascinated by this duality. Have we backed ourselves into a corner? Are these consequences inevitable in our pursuit of constant development and technological progress?
The black-and-white photographs were taken with a flash at various locations around and outside Gothenburg, but the book presents the images as if they were captured in a single location. Screws and nuts are used to hold the book together. Aesthetically, this resonates with the book’s content, but it also serves a practical function. The binding prevents the reader from ever seeing the innermost parts of the images, causing the images to blend together; on some spreads, it is unclear where one image ends and the next begins. The pages are thick to lend a sense of weight to the mass of metal moving between them.
