Max Colson
Max Colson was Artist in Residence at the UCL Urban Laboratory during the 2014-15 academic year, supervised by Dr Ben Campkin.
Leverhulme Artist in Residence 2014/15
The residency - titled Hide and Seek: The Dubious Nature of High Security Spaces - extended the photographic investigations of Max's photojournalist persona (the paranoid Adam Walker-Smith) and his enquiries into the hidden infrastructure of security design and control embedded in the UK built environment.
Max Colson's performative photographic practice dramatises the use of security features in public space, questioning how design engenders feelings of safety or a sense of individual or collective distrust. The project aimed to heighten viewers' awareness of the way that security design, surveillance and paranoia interact within the urban environment. The photos also use humour to emphasise the limits of the medium as documentary evidence and suggest the influence of human bias on photojournalistic investigation, questioning issues around surveillance and security design in relation to the credibility of the investigation itself.
Max's residency culminated with his first solo British exhibition at the RIBA from 9 July - 27 September 2015, titled Virtual Control - Security and the Urban Imagination.
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