Photographic artist Steffi Klenz is preoccupied with the built environment, exploring the notion of place and spatiality in her work. Although her work presents environments and buildings it is not architectural photography. Instead, it challenges conventional conceptions of architectural representation.

The images in her new exhibition Plotting Spaces explore the architectural qualities of the theatrical fly-tower. Klenz’s images do not illustrate the specific narrative of any particular play or named theatre, but rather allow the flytower – generally an unseen apparatus – to become expressive and performative in its own right.

Equally interested in the dynamics of photography Klenz’s exhibition investigates the functional similarities between the flytower and the focal-plane shutter of the camera – a mechanism, which consists of two overlapping curtains that form an adjustable slit or window that, when the shutter is released, exposes the film.

The components of theatrical production: curtains, lights, scenery and visual effects, have in common with the camera their ability to mask reality and convey illusion. Both theatre and camera rely on hidden systems to create these illusions.

Plotting Spaces brings otherwise invisible spaces into view, spaces which, although they are empty, infer presence, just out of sight beyond the frame of the image.

The exhibition is supported by the University for the Creative Arts and Ffotogallery