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From: Line of Height

A reoccurring theme in my practice has been a study of the disintegration details of a wilderness in decline. In A Small Book of Trees I photographed groups of trees in the city space, London. In another series of work, Line of Height, I photographed the office workers in their workspace in a line of height.

From: A Line of Height

Though there is a social documentary aspect to Kantone�s images of offices she is able to transform these banal spaces into formal photographic compositions. For Kantonen what is most important is the sense of the shared space of the office. Many of us work in these kinds of spaces at some point in our lives and Kantonen captures the strange conformation between the human and the institution that they embody.

In the line of height portraits Kantonen has asked office workers to take a break from their activities and form a line running form tallest to the shortest before taking their portrait. The slightly absurd game touches gently on the issues of authority within the office. The structures that establish the professional hierarchy are stripped away to be replaced by the comically primitive idea of height as an index of value.

As well as politics Kantonen�s large format camera captures the minutiae that create the strange intimacy of the office space. The office is not usually a part of the public realm and there is something touching about the way people will demarcate their desk space with mementoes of their families, their holidays or their hobbies.

From: Line of Height