Author: Gareth E. Rees
Publisher: Influx Press
Paperback
Staff Pick: "Supermarket carkparks are not places you stop and look. Head down, bags to the car. Unless you’re Gareth Rees. In Leyton, he explores a car park hemmed in by developer’s hoardings which depict a fictitious town centre; in Hastings, beneath the castle and on the site of an old waterworks, Morrison’s car park is at the heart of the city’s history. Up and down the country he finds these ‘non-places’ textured with the ‘multiplicity of places reaching back through time’. But they are living spaces where kids meet to play, dealer meet to deal, and doggers meet to… well, dog. As public space diminishes, these private but unpoliced edgelands are becoming more and more important. They are places to be alone in company. And on his travels through these carparks, sifting through the detritus we toss out of our car windows, Rees creates a sideways state-of-the-nation portrait, sad and funny in equal measure."