Polly Braden

London Square Mile

In a city where almost every man, every activity, every movement is recorded - objectively and value-free - via CCTV, Polly Braden makes a form of selection and triage from the flood of images with her photographs. By evaluating the scenes and images, she is doing a work for which in the control rooms of the police there is mostly no staff available. In her series London Square Mile she focuses on the people amidst the impressive, shiny and cool facades of London's financial district, and makes the difference between architecture and urban life visible. The displacement of individuals in urban areas becomes a metaphor of societal alienation.