“Asylum of the birds” is the culmination of research work that Roger Ballen began upon his arrival in South Africa in the 1970s. The shots are taken in shanty towns on the outskirts of Johannesburg, recording an absurd, unusual everyday life in which people and animals not only coexist but cohabit, in the truest sense of the word. There is no structure or order in this world of desertion and boredom, where people appear to have renounced all sense of self-consciousness.

Roger Ballen captures all his shots in black and white, driven by his belief that colour photography is a “FAKE” format that distorts reality. He uses his traditional camera to capture something much less visible yet much more powerful than reality: the psyche. He stages then captures his shots in an attempt to show the innermost depths of the human mind. Archetypes come to the surface, in more or less abrupt fashion, creating an image where elements from the real world have little more than symbolic meaning. He sees the bird as the intermediary between Earth and Paradise. It becomes an emblem of the primordial desire that lies behind all our subconscious thoughts. The title of this recent series also gave its name to a work published by Thames & Hudson in March 2014, which provides background information about the pieces themselves: the asylum is the refuge, the shelter in which our psyche hides, but also the cage in which our thoughts are imprisoned. In this collection, Roger Ballen shows how the secrets of our mind are reflected in the real world, and in particular in the visual world of “Asylum of the birds”.

A FILM BY ROGER BALLEN | www.asylumofthebirds.com | Directed by Ben Crossman

BOOKSIGNING with ROGER BALLEN | Sunday 16 November 15:00 | stand A20