the combines project is an open invitation whereby I invite audiences to look through a selection of my photographs. The invitation is to create a combine (in essence a photo-collage) using two images side by side.

The act of handling and shuffling through the images means each image is democratically subject

to any kind of combine which the participant wants to make.

I want to present the audience with a decision making process which encourages reflections on the

nature of photography - What sort of images are there to see? How can I engage with them? I invite

participants to place their combines on a communal wall which grows for the duration of the exhibition /presentation.

An instructional video guides the participants through the process.

The project is a manifestation of a public engagement both with my particular imagery and with

photography in general. It was my intention that the activity of combining would enable formal and / or associative interpretations to develop freely, without being led by me as the artist as to which

associations are allowed or anticipated.

I noticed through talking with participants that more often than not, they started reading and recollecting their own lives through my imagery, or let their imagination flow through an image to create a narrative.

This means that the project (and the photographs) acts as conduits of communication, capable of

containing and encouraging recollection.