Architecture Cabinet / Ben Murphy. The Riverbed

In a remote mountainous area in south-east Spain, a group of multicultural non-conformists live in their own self-created paradise. In the exhibition The Riverbed, photographer Ben Murphy presents images from his ten-year study of these nomads who have formed a new community in the mountains of Andalusia.

Ben Murphy’s work focuses on human interventions in a constructed space or place. His photographs are portraits of built environments that reveal the identity of their residents. Murphy is fascinated by the notion of decay, be it of buildings, objects or people. How do we relate to the world via the things that surround us, and how do we express our identity through our creations? How do we try to bring steadfastness and meaning to our lives when everything is transitory? How do we create order, a feeling of security, a certain individuality and comfort, or singularity? Murphy’s images are best described as melancholic reflections on philosopher Heidegger’s notion of ‘Dasein’: the experience of standing in the world.

In the Architecture Cabinet, the Flanders Architecture Institute presents rapidly changing exhibitions of sketches, drawings or photographs that showcase the very best of contemporary research and design. The space is also regularly used to investigate the representation of architecture.