Roger Ballen Exhibition

Last Saturday I went down to Cobh, to the Sirius Arts Centre for a talk on the photography of Roger Ballen and to see his exhibition. I have fallen in love with his photography and only came across it after reading a review for a music video (below) he directed for the song called 'I Fink U Freeky' by Die Antwoord. Roger Ballen is a black and white photographer, who uses analogue.
Roger Ballen is American but lives and works in South Africa. After a lot of traveling he arrived in South Africa in the 1970's during the apartheid. He photographs people in a South African town who lie on the fringe of society, are not part of the norm and who live alongside animals in a society were there is no hierarchy between beast or man. His earlier work nearly always features people, but in his newer works people are featured less and less, their presence is sometimes only seen as a hand or mouth peeking through a hole in the wall. His newer works focuses more on the natural lines on the walls, and the inside of the rooms were these people live. His work nearly always features the animals and birds that live alongside the people in the town.
Roger Ballen's photos are a psychological journey into the lives of his subjects and into the inner world of the photographer himself.

Outside the Sirius Art Center and the view from the first room in the gallery.

Peggy Sue Amison giving her talk on Roger Ballen

A seaside view of Cobh

Some of his photos that I saw at the Sirius Arts Centre: