'Scarti' - Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

"Ghetto was published ten years ago. It documented twelve contemporary gated communities, and was photographed by Broomberg and Chanarin entirely on large format colour negative. The book took three years to produce and its now out of print. Scarti di avviamento is the technical term at the printer in Italy for the paper that is fed through the printing press to clean the drums of ink between print runs. This by-product is usually destroyed once the book is printed. But during the printing of Ghetto the scarti - Italian for scraps - were saved and stored away by publisher Gigi Giannuzzi. Following his untimely death in December 2012 these scarti were discovered. The twice-printed sheets reveal uncanny and often beautiful combinations. Yet in truth they are nothing but a series of little accidents." - Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

Whilst they claim the images within this series were created accidentally, I find it difficult to believe this due to the quality of composition between the overlaying prints and the relationships created within each single image. The images above appear in the same format within the publication of this work, it is a strong example of how 'Scarti' revisits their previous publication 'Ghetto' with a new approach. In the original book 'Ghetto' each community was portrayed in designated sections, 'Scarti' on the other hand blurs these boundaries and portrays hybrids of communities.

The original prints are now part of a wall exhibition, the prints are the same size as the intended scale for the 'Ghetto' publication. This recontextualisation makes the images feel rather small on the wall whereas they feel like rather large prints when viewing them in their book form. This arguably is a way of keeping the experience of viewing them reasonably similar in both contexts as both you have to be reasonably close to the print, which makes it feel like a personal experience.

In the image on the left, the overlaying handwritten text, is a letter to Adam Broomsberg in which it seems a subject within the book has sent to him in response to the publication of the images. Personally I feel that this image establishes an individual context for this publication which is separate from 'Ghetto' as it merges not only space but also time within a single image. The image on the right is the image which I struggle the most to believe was entirely accidental. The relationship between the male subject and its text "What is your earliest memory? Sitting on daddy's lap learning to whistle." and the image of the elderly lady seems like it could have very easily been calculated. Her positioning makes it appear as if she is sitting on his lap, but also the dress that she is wearing is rather youthful, almost like a dress for a toddler, whilst the man wears rather grown up, almost 'parent' clothing. I would like to believe that it is an accident, and me doubting that is obviously a compliment to the 'accident' if it is, but i just struggle to believe it for all of the iamges within the publication.