PhotoSaintGermain-Natalie Curtis, Tower

Natalie Curtis, Tower

On the eve of leaving a city for good, an artist observes the places around her. Drawing on a vast archive on Manchester, Natalie Curtis wished to produce a final series of images in the city where she lived the longest. Conceived as an antidote to a substantial body of work, this departure project stands as a distinct and self-contained creation.

Now widely considered the UK's second city, Manchester has seen its profile rise — with the arrival of the Prime Minister's offices, the hosting of a G20 summit, etc. — while the city ascends vertically. It is this experience of the "forest" of concrete and glass that interests Curtis. Rather than focusing on the controversy surrounding contemporary towers, however, she turns her attention to daily domestic life. The aim is to document a type of housing far removed from the more familiar apartments within Victorian houses.

This project reveals the almost supernatural strangeness of living at such heights. Daily life evokes that of a distant outpost, punctuated by monitoring weather conditions. A science-fiction atmosphere emerges, born from this blend of gleaming modernity and antiquity — the photographs having been made on 35 mm film. Isolated from the street, one discovers that amidst the tumult and hedonism, silence and loneliness persist. It is up to the viewer to assess the situation.