David Clough, Visiting Photographer

In Shape of Time: Vestiges of Shadow and Light, Dave Clough presents a series of black-and-white photographs exploring Japanese architecture as a record of duration, labor, and restraint. Rather than documenting place, the work attends to structure — beams, roofs, corridors, and walls — where light and shadow reveal how buildings are made, repaired, and sustained over time.

The photographs move deliberately between interior and exterior spaces, shifting from material detail to scale and back again. Thatch, timber, tile, and stone are shown not as symbols but as working elements shaped by use and repetition. Human presence is largely absent, yet implied everywhere through proportion, wear, and repair.

Clough’s approach resists spectacle. Castles appear grounded rather than monumental; domestic spaces emphasize balance over ornament. Light is treated as a structural force, entering only where construction allows it, shaping what can be seen and what must remain concealed. The sequence unfolds quietly, without narrative or destination. Instead, it invites sustained looking — a consideration of how time accumulates in built form and how architecture endures through attention rather than display.