Walthamstow Wonderlands
Walthamstow Wetlands & Hackney Marshes, London, 2023
35mm film
Over the summer, I returned repeatedly to Walthamstow Wetlands and Hackney Marshes. I became interested in the temporary worlds people created within the landscape. A jetty became someone’s reading room. A clearing became a gathering place. A stretch of river became a swimming pool.
Individuals, families and strangers each made small spaces their own through everyday acts of rest, play, conversation and solitude. These worlds existed briefly, then quietly dissolved back into the landscape.
Making these photographs meant remaining unobtrusive. I waited quietly and photographed from a distance, allowing each scene to unfold without interruption. Rather than focusing on people in isolation, the photographs observe how they inhabit and transform the spaces around them.
The series invites viewers to notice these fleeting occupations of space, and the quiet ways a shared landscape is continually reshaped by those who briefly inhabit it.