BED/BAD access

I photograph only people with whom I have an existing personal relationship, using the bedroom as a space through which to encounter a part of their lives that may previously have been inaccessible to me.

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I am drawn to the bedroom because it is both ordinary and unusually guarded: a universal space filled with highly individual traces. The objects beside a bed, photographs, books, decorations, colours, clutter and arrangements quietly reveal habits, attachments, circumstances and different stages of life. Yet these traces do not necessarily amount to a complete portrait. The bedroom therefore provides an abundance of intimate information while retaining the privacy that makes access to it meaningful.

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Each encounter begins with a handwritten invitation. Participants decide whether I may enter, how their space can be photographed, and what must remain private. They also select one non-essential object they would take if they had to leave their home and never return, which serves as an intentional act of self-representation. Access is therefore not granted once, but continually negotiated throughout the encounter.

What remains inaccessible is recorded alongside: invitations declined or unanswered, objects and spaces withheld from the camera, and photographs made but ultimately excluded from the exhibition. These absences are controlled by both me and the participants. The resulting archive records not only intimacy, but its boundaries. Greater proximity produces more information, but not necessarily a more complete understanding.

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Photography is deliberately chosen because its selective nature mirrors this relational structure. It offers detailed evidence while producing only a fragment, one that is shaped by access, framing and selection.