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The series of photographs is capturing a joyful, alluring and yet somewhat eerie and haunted atmosphere of a swing dance social at the Mildmay Working Men’s Club in Newington Green, London.

 

Although through glimpses and fragments, these images are indirectly attempting to narrate a story of friendships and ambiguous relationships, openness and secrets, desire and anxiety, the community and individuals; of the motion through stillness; of looking and being looked at and of escapism and inability to escape. 

 

The lighting in Mildmay’s ballroom makes an experience of being and dancing in this space quite cinematic. The characters melt into the dense darkness of the background, arise from nowhere, their bodies morph and merge - it all gives an oneiric quality and mimics other subjective phenomena such as memory or fantasy.