Tommy Martin

Instructions for Use examines contradictory spaces in our urban world; places that are manmade but do not exist to facilitate human interaction or communication. These are spaces without history, designed and controlled solely to facilitate more customers to buy more things more quickly.

These spaces form an indistinct borderline between public and private
space, not quite belonging to either. Anthropologist Marc Augé coined the term Non-Places to describe these kinds of space. Non-places are defined
in part by their signs, by their prescribed instructions for use.

The trees and shrubs that are planted around these spaces are caught in-between culture and nature. They exist as decorative screening, or for checking boxes on planning applications. But these are also still real plants that relentlessly pull towards a natural order. These trees that are used to hide these spaces would themselves start to become forests without continued maintenance and control.

In the quiet before dawn these empty spaces present a familiar location in an uncanny light. When we strip away the customers and their cars and shopping trolleys from these places, we see the structures for what they
are, and cast light on the logic and reasoning behind building these huge single-function restricted and dehumanised structures in overcrowded
towns and cities.

This series of photographs was created in direct response to the frustration at not being able to find the time in my overcrowded life to leave the city and pursue photography in ancient forests.

Despite the negative connotations presented by my images, my own relationship to these non-places has become complicated. In the process of exploring them I inadvertently discovered a time and space that is quiet enough to hear my myself think again. An unlikely oasis of calm which has also allowed me to rediscover my passion for making images.