Simon Ford
@simonford.bsky.social
I use photography to examine landscapes of capital. I see photography and aesthetic practices as critical tools for social analysis—methods for uniting diverse knowledges in shaping transformative social understanding. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/
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Everyday Utopias, Moral Economies - a work in progress
Benjamin argues utopia isn’t just future-facing; it recovers lives erased by dominant history. Even as a “weak messianic power,” this recovery remains crucial in a present stripped of hope. landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/everyday-utopias/
Benjamin argues utopia isn’t just future-facing; it recovers lives erased by dominant history. Even as a “weak messianic power,” this recovery remains crucial in a present stripped of hope. landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/everyday-utopias/
Everyday Utopias, Moral Economies - a work in progress
Benjamin argues utopia isn’t just future-facing; it recovers lives erased by dominant history. Even as a “weak messianic power,” this recovery remains crucial in a present stripped of hope. landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/everyday-utopias/
Benjamin argues utopia isn’t just future-facing; it recovers lives erased by dominant history. Even as a “weak messianic power,” this recovery remains crucial in a present stripped of hope. landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/everyday-utopias/
December 21, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Everyday Utopias, Moral Economies - a work in progress
Benjamin argues utopia isn’t just future-facing; it recovers lives erased by dominant history. Even as a “weak messianic power,” this recovery remains crucial in a present stripped of hope. landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/everyday-utopias/
Benjamin argues utopia isn’t just future-facing; it recovers lives erased by dominant history. Even as a “weak messianic power,” this recovery remains crucial in a present stripped of hope. landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/everyday-utopias/
1. What might a documentary look like that explores the utopian and the everyday—not as polar forces, but as interdependent dimensions of social and political life. A refusal that utopia belongs solely to the ideal, that the possible is located in the routines—contradictions, even—of the everyday.
December 21, 2025 at 9:18 AM
1. What might a documentary look like that explores the utopian and the everyday—not as polar forces, but as interdependent dimensions of social and political life. A refusal that utopia belongs solely to the ideal, that the possible is located in the routines—contradictions, even—of the everyday.
2. For thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, a better world is not found in abstract visions but in the suppressed histories of ordinary people. Those kinds of experiences that point to the possibility of a "classless society"—although, very often, distorted by an instrumentalized idea of progress.
December 20, 2025 at 11:28 AM
2. For thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, a better world is not found in abstract visions but in the suppressed histories of ordinary people. Those kinds of experiences that point to the possibility of a "classless society"—although, very often, distorted by an instrumentalized idea of progress.
3. To think utopia, then, is not merely to fantasize about a distant perfection, but to discern the unrealized possibilities latent in society. Imagination remains crucial, yet it must be tethered to material reality and the aspirations of those whose lives are shaped by structural inequality.
December 20, 2025 at 11:28 AM
3. To think utopia, then, is not merely to fantasize about a distant perfection, but to discern the unrealized possibilities latent in society. Imagination remains crucial, yet it must be tethered to material reality and the aspirations of those whose lives are shaped by structural inequality.
Everyday Utopias (a work in progress)
November 12, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Everyday Utopias (a work in progress)
Everyday Utopias (a work in progress)
November 9, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Everyday Utopias (a work in progress)
Everday Utopias (a work in progress)
November 9, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Everday Utopias (a work in progress)
A short reflection on photographing absence, loss, and lack, or photography as a mode of reasoning in the negative—a praxis of revealing truth and meaning through what is missing (in the landscape). landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/p...
November 8, 2025 at 1:23 PM
A short reflection on photographing absence, loss, and lack, or photography as a mode of reasoning in the negative—a praxis of revealing truth and meaning through what is missing (in the landscape). landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/p...
A photo / writing fragment about Llanwern steelworks, Newport, an Amazon distribution hub, Jeremy Deller and the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/a...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/a...
A walk along the former site of Llanwern steelworks
Once a major centre of steel production in South Wales, the site has undergone significant contraction since its heyday. The blast furnace and hot strip mill—together known as the ‘heavy end’—were …
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
October 1, 2025 at 2:44 PM
A photo / writing fragment about Llanwern steelworks, Newport, an Amazon distribution hub, Jeremy Deller and the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/a...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/a...
A photo and writing fragment about Marine Colliery and the picket-line during the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/f...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/f...
Former entrance to Marine Colliery, Cwm, Ebbw Vale
This location was the site of a prolonged standoff between striking miners and police during the 1984–1985 miners’ dispute. During the confrontation, as one of these strikers, I remember we secured…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
October 1, 2025 at 1:15 PM
A photo and writing fragment about Marine Colliery and the picket-line during the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/f...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/f...
Reposted by Simon Ford
“…you can't make much of an alliance out of negatives; the only real basis of alliances is agreement on positive proposals for transcending the negatives.”
Raymond Williams, Decentralisation and the Politics of Place, 1984
Raymond Williams, Decentralisation and the Politics of Place, 1984
September 25, 2025 at 3:53 PM
“…you can't make much of an alliance out of negatives; the only real basis of alliances is agreement on positive proposals for transcending the negatives.”
Raymond Williams, Decentralisation and the Politics of Place, 1984
Raymond Williams, Decentralisation and the Politics of Place, 1984
A photo / writing fragment about Pillgwenlly library, Newport, the mantra “knowledge is power” and Walter Benjamin’s theory of redemption (or how to make history active).
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/t...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/t...
The old Pillgwenlly library, Newport, South Wales
The old Pillgwenlly Library, more commonly known as “Pill” in Newport, South Wales, stands as a monument to the struggles and aspirations of the working class. From the mid-nineteenth century, Pill…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 25, 2025 at 10:24 AM
A photo / writing fragment about Pillgwenlly library, Newport, the mantra “knowledge is power” and Walter Benjamin’s theory of redemption (or how to make history active).
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/t...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/t...
A photo / writing fragment about my shortcut home, nature and Adorno's theory of the non-identical.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/m...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/m...
My short cut home, nature and Adorno’s concept of the non-identical
A shortcut I sometimes take from Frizinghall station to my home follows the old road to Wind Hill. It feels like an ancient lane, a hollow way worn into the landscape, beginning at the edge of a ho…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 24, 2025 at 12:21 PM
A photo / writing fragment about my shortcut home, nature and Adorno's theory of the non-identical.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/m...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/m...
A photo and writing fragment about a council estate in Halifax, "Operation Raise the Flag" and Walter Benjamin's notion of "profane illumination".
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/a...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/a...
A wall on a council estate built by apprentices in 1948
I believe this wall, with its commemorative stone, was constructed by apprentice bricklayers as a training exercise in 1948. The estate, situated near Halifax in West Yorkshire, formed part of the …
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 23, 2025 at 12:23 PM
A photo and writing fragment about a council estate in Halifax, "Operation Raise the Flag" and Walter Benjamin's notion of "profane illumination".
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/a...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/a...
Penarth, South Wales, yesterday.
September 14, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Penarth, South Wales, yesterday.
@stevehanson.bsky.social, last week - the old clay quarry, Summit Brick Works, nr. Littleborough, from the Calderbrook Road.
September 14, 2025 at 7:28 PM
@stevehanson.bsky.social, last week - the old clay quarry, Summit Brick Works, nr. Littleborough, from the Calderbrook Road.
A photo / writing fragment about instrumental time, natural time and inequality.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/c...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/c...
Chronos and Kairos
During a walk from Merthyr Tydfil to Abercynon along the Pendarren Tramroad—historically significant as the route of the first successful steam locomotive trial in 1804 between the Pendarren Ironwo…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:14 PM
A photo / writing fragment about instrumental time, natural time and inequality.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/c...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/c...
A photo / writing fragment about history, the materiality of language and landscape.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/b...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/b...
Boy pulling a pony trap past the old slaughterhouse
I encountered a boy—no more than fourteen or fifteen—near Harecroft drawing a two-wheeled horse trap, his slight frame wedged between the shafts where the horse ought to have been. He approached wi…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:13 PM
A photo / writing fragment about history, the materiality of language and landscape.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/b...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/b...
A photo / writing fragment about Theodor W. Adorno’s visit to a colliery and my own experience working as a miner.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/15/t...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/15/t...
Theodor W. Adorno’s visit to a colliery in the Ruhr, 1954.
Adorno’s visit coincided with his efforts to establish the field of industrial sociology at the University of Frankfurt am Main. The photograph of that visit recalls for me my own time as a m…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:13 PM
A photo / writing fragment about Theodor W. Adorno’s visit to a colliery and my own experience working as a miner.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/15/t...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/15/t...
A photo / writing fragment about history, landscape and popular culture.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/d...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/d...
Disused railway bridge near Pontypool, South Wales
The railway bridge here belongs to the disused line between Pontypool and Blaenavon. Until the late 1950s, this route would have been busy with coal trains from the collieries at Talywain, Abersych…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:13 PM
A photo / writing fragment about history, landscape and popular culture.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/d...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/d...
A photo / writing fragment about
architectural embellishment, high modernism and lost optimism.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/t...
architectural embellishment, high modernism and lost optimism.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/t...
The Roger Stevens Building, University of Leeds
In The Mass Ornament, Siegfried Kracauer contends that the modernist building, through its renunciation of embellishment, disavows a direct continuity with the subjectivities of the past. This nega…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:13 PM
A photo / writing fragment about
architectural embellishment, high modernism and lost optimism.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/t...
architectural embellishment, high modernism and lost optimism.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/t...
A photo / writing fragment about pit-head baths, my own experience as a miner and the co-opting of community by the far-right.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/p...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/p...
Pithead Baths, Wyndham Colliery, Upper Ogmore Valley, South Wales, c.1928
The construction of pithead baths at collieries was a late arrival to industrial life in Britain. Until the 1920s, the idea that miners might wash before returning home was unusual, adopted only by…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:12 PM
A photo / writing fragment about pit-head baths, my own experience as a miner and the co-opting of community by the far-right.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/p...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/p...
A photo / writing fragment about the Liverpool dockworkers’ strike and art schools.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/07/30/a...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/07/30/a...
A collection bucket for the Liverpool dockworkers’ strike
The collection bucket was used during the Liverpool dockworkers’ strike of 1995–1998 strike, specifically for a Christmas appeal in 1996. I encountered it recently at the home of a friend who…
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:12 PM
A photo / writing fragment about the Liverpool dockworkers’ strike and art schools.
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/07/30/a...
landscapeasdissection.wordpress.com/2025/07/30/a...
This already seems like a message from the Stone Age.
Marx in mind here, and his musings how capital might destroy itself - including the inability to keep up with its own technological progress. Benjamin comes to mind too, and the Utopian applying of an ‘emergency brake’ on (capitalist) progress.
Marx in mind here, and his musings how capital might destroy itself - including the inability to keep up with its own technological progress. Benjamin comes to mind too, and the Utopian applying of an ‘emergency brake’ on (capitalist) progress.
September 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM
This already seems like a message from the Stone Age.
Marx in mind here, and his musings how capital might destroy itself - including the inability to keep up with its own technological progress. Benjamin comes to mind too, and the Utopian applying of an ‘emergency brake’ on (capitalist) progress.
Marx in mind here, and his musings how capital might destroy itself - including the inability to keep up with its own technological progress. Benjamin comes to mind too, and the Utopian applying of an ‘emergency brake’ on (capitalist) progress.