A meticulously sequenced selection of 84 photographs drawn from two decades of commercial and personal practice presents interconnected themes of technology, environment, capitalism, and culture. Images augment, undermine, and complicate perceptions of the modern world through juxtaposition and visual sequencing. The material centers on human capacity to create beauty while simultaneously causing desolation, framing conflicting views on humanity and planetary consequences. Compositions range from junkyards to uncanny scenes and combine dissonance, humour, and reverence for aesthetics. The sequence operates as an exacting investigation of the Anthropocene, revealing the slippage between progress and decay.
A single photograph has a remarkable capacity to convey and contain meaning. And when another image is displayed alongside the first, something extraordinary happens to both pictures. Moving through the meticulously sequenced selection of 84 photographs (chosen from an initial edit of 9,500) in Thomas Prior's new monograph, Slip Me the Master Key, we are drawn into an epic survey of technology, environment, capitalism and culture.
The subject matter pivots around the human capacity to make wondrous things while also being the means of creating desolation. " The work is framed around an exploration of my conflicting views on humanity - the actions we enact on each other and the consequences on the planet," Prior explains. "However, this is juxtaposed with a reverence for the beauty that we are capable of creating."
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