Best known for his striking photographs of people on the fringes of

South African society, Roger Ballen makes images that are ambiguous

and often disturbing, but also shot through with flashes of dark

humour. The photographs in Shadow Chamber blur the boundaries

between documentary photography and art forms such as painting,

theatre and sculpture, challenging the ways in which we perceive the

`reality' of photography. Ballen's images are completely honest, yet

also fabricated.

The mysterious, cell-like rooms that Ballen photographs are actual

places, but they are unsettling and strange, logical but impossible:

their walls are covered with scribbled drawings, stains and dangling

wires, the floors are strewn with bizarre props and artefacts. Dogs,

rabbits and kittens wander into the frame or are stuffed into unlikely

containers. The humans and animals in Ballen's photographs appear

isolated and lost, yet strangely empowered at the same time. The

resulting images are allegories of lived experiences and surreal takes

on human destiny.