Edgework Artist Profile #4: Andy Day

‘Tjentiste II', 2015 by Andy Day

As part of our collaboration with Edgework an artist-led cross-disciplinary journal and store with an emphasis on place, we are running a series of monthly profiles of the artists here on Elsewhere. The fourth artist in our series is the photographer Andy Day: 

Andy Day's work examines the body’s relationship with the built environment, wilful misuse of architecture, subversive practices, appropriation of space and place, edgework and social interaction. Often, he works with climbers as they deliberately misinterpret architecture, finding new uses for both public and private space. 

Andy Day comments: ‘Practitioners of buildering deliberately misinterpret architecture, finding new uses for both public and private space. The built environment presents opportunities and climbers bring investments of meaning to aspects of the city. A playful recoding is achieved; imagined futures are enacted and recorded, and the praxis produces a fresh set of urban features. For a brief moment, a ledge becomes a crimp, a protruding brick becomes a side pull, a drainpipe becomes a layback. Routes otherwise unknown and unseen come temporarily into existence. There is a unique appreciation of mundane features with the geometries and textures suddenly containing potential for adventure and embodied encounters. These physical interventions radically insert the body into the urban landscape, bringing alternative meanings to the city, and making it a site for autotelic experimentation and earnest play.’

'Grant, University of British Columbia I', 2014 by Andy Day

International travel has informed much of Day’s work. He is a participant-observer in the international parkour scene and documented the rise of parkour photographing its communities in London in the early 2000s. He continues to play a role in shaping its visual culture today. Notable works include ‘Former’, a series of photographs taken in collaboration with parkour athletes from Serbia and Croatia at Tito-era monuments across former Yugoslavia.

Day will take over the Edgework Instagram account from 28 October – 3 November and share images from his recent exploration of three Sound Mirrors (also known as Acoustic Mirrors or Listening Ears) situated on the south coast of England. 

The takeover marks the launch of Day's new limited-edition print 'Sound Mirror' is available to pre-order from Edgework here. 

Andy Day on Edgework
Instagram
Website