When is a door not a door?

Distinctions

Discipline : Art & Photography

Categories : Photography / Landscape Photography : Silver certification

Grounded in documentary photography, the project explores different understandings of home through inhabited, abandoned, and under-construction houses across Ontario.

Rather than presenting a linear narrative, the work draws from the poetic documentary mode, favouring interpretation through atmosphere, materiality, and the subtle traces of human presence embedded in the environment.

Working exclusively with natural light and exterior viewpoints, the photographs emphasize texture, scale, and spatial tension. Material traces and found objects emerge as quiet indicators of life, memory, and transition.

Subtle optical distortions, created using a prism filter, introduce moments of abstraction that challenge fixed interpretations and reinforce the multiplicity of meanings associated with home.

Over a three-month period, approximately 600 photographs were produced, from which 33 final images were selected.

The work is presented as a letter-sized photobook (8.5 × 11 in.), where sequencing and layout play a central role. Full-bleed images are juxtaposed with off-centered compositions and generous negative space, creating a measured visual rhythm that encourages comparison across the three architectural conditions.

The door functions as the central metaphor of the project: an entry point into each house’s story and a prompt for reflection on thresholds, memory, and belonging. Split between the cover and the first opening, the title (“When is a door not a door?”) invites viewers to complete it for themselves and reconsider their assumptions about home.

By presenting inhabited, abandoned, and under-construction homes on equal footing, the project challenges binary perceptions of value, safety, and belonging. It reflects on cycles of construction and decay, prompting broader questions about sustainability, urban development, and the human imprint on the landscape.

Ultimately, the work proposes that “home” is not a fixed condition, but a fluid relationship between people, structures, and the environments they inhabit.

The project in images