Boarding House

Roger Ballen (1950)

Psychologically charged black-and-white images created in a decaying warehouse, where fragmented figures and symbolic clutter blur the line between dream and delirium.

Description

Roger Ballen’s project, Boarding House, developed between 2000 and 2008, delves into a unique visual exploration situated in a secluded three-story warehouse near Johannesburg, South Africa. Initially serving mining operations, this remote structure—encircled by the barren expanse of gold mine tailings—was later inhabited by transient residents who transformed it into a labyrinth of improvised living spaces. While a real location, Ballen's images reshape the physical structure into a metaphorical and fictitious place, intended to represent spaces within the viewer's mind.

At its core, Boarding House pursues an imaginative descent into the subconscious, navigating psychological spaces marked by chaos, absurdity, and primitive instinct. Compositions are meticulously staged tableaux incorporating drawings, sculptural elements, and deliberately placed objects that symbolize deeper narratives. Figures are fragmented or obscured, frequently reduced to isolated body parts or replaced by props and animals, enhancing the surreal and enigmatic tone.

Ballen employed a medium-format camera with square film, embracing black-and-white photography as a means to abstract reality and heighten the project’s discomforting tone. His method involved constructing elaborate sets where structure and disorder coexist in meticulously staged scenarios.

Published as a monograph in 2009 and premiered at Hamiltons Gallery, London (2009), Boarding House was subsequently shown at Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles (2011) and folded into major retrospectives, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (2013), Istanbul Modern (2016–17), Fotografiska (Stockholm), and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. This exhibition history consolidated the series’ role in defining Ballen’s mature "Ballenesque" visual language.

Behind the work

The warehouse became abandoned in the late 1990s but was soon reoccupied by a diverse group, including poor workers, transients, fugitives, witchdoctors, and animals. People divided the open space with blankets, metal sheeting, or anything available, creating makeshift rooms in which they lived alongside a wide range of animals.

While there was a sense of collaboration with the subjects, in Boarding House the human face started to disappear from the images. Ballen noted that the focus shifted to allow other formal and symbolic elements in the photograph to gain prominence.

Quotes by the photographer

"I’ve always said, if I can put a word to it then it's probably not a good picture. The picture should go beyond verbal comprehension."

"During the process of creating Boarding House, I broke through or into parts of my mind that I never knew existed. It was quite enthralling to find and be in this place. It is difficult to explain this place except that I think it exists in some way or another in most people’s minds."

"Black and White is essentially an abstract way to interpret and transform what one might refer to as reality."

"It is the creative process, which is automatic and ritualistic, like brushing my teeth. I don’t think about how I should or shouldn’t do it or why I am doing it."

"I discovered interiors and the motifs, such as drawings and wire on the walls, that became the foundation for what I call the style of the ‘Ballenesque‘ – motifs that I would work with for the remainder of my career... I often say it was the most important period of my career. I photographed the outside world for the last time."

"Everything in the picture is totally organic. Everything in the picture is there for a reason. Every single thing should integrate with everything else... if you want to get to a deeper level... it has to have an organic nature to it."

"There’s two things I look for, I guess. One is simplicity of form. You’ll see in my photographs, the forms are very clear and precise, but with complex meaning... The meaning that comes out of it is complex. In its own way, it has the complexity of something alive. That’s the key to being an artist—that the work feels alive, stays alive when it’s not alive."

Tags and context

Credits: Alasdair Foster, Talking Pictures (project nomination). Suggest an Edit