Still Works

Still works is a set of photographs documenting mostly electrical products that have been placed outside their owners’ homes. The photographs are made with a 35mm SLR camera, they are grainy and in contrast to the increasing high definition that is offered by newer digital technologies.

The photographs present these products at a moment of transition, they are dislocated becoming sculptural displays of colour, texture and form which incorporate the pavements, walls and the mainly Victorian houses they stand outside. They may have been placed here but they also seem to have spilled out; a step in the flow of consumer goods during their transient plastic lives. We may also consider the seemingly delicate display of some and perhaps in this the hope that the products may go on to be reused or repaired; evidence of a concern about real value rather than a relative one.

The book collects together twenty six of these products, taken over a ten year period in the street that Jones lives in and those adjacent to it. As a set the anthropomorphic and humorous aspects appear, this is part of the fascination for Jones: “I grew up in a home were the words ‘it’s too good to throw away’ were regularly spoken the photographs are perhaps in part an attempt to preserve these products, many of which if I had the space I would have taken in”