On Pleasure Grounds by Clemens Ascher

Clemens Ascher is an Austrian born photographer who now currently lives and works in London.

The series depicts scenes at a fictional amusement park. The people in this bleak world are being entertained by dubious attractions and kept “happy” and especially uncritical through lot’s of distraction and a quick sugar rush. There's no real choice in this world - no space for questions or opinions and just enough time to take a souvenir photo. It seems there's nothing left for them but to ride their hobby horses.

My goal was to create an artificial world, nearly two-dimensional, where missiles, animals and people would function like interchangeable figurines, marionettes playing on a theatrical stage. Thinking about control. Control through architecture, food, media, entertainment etc.

The series is entirely fictional and “fake”. The process plays an important part in the work- just like the world it's portraying it is entirely constructed. But also Humor plays a certain part - if you look around in our modern world of mass tourism, cheap attractions and distractions I can't help it but finding it a little ridiculous - and I guess that comes to show especially in this series. Nothing is all too serious and people make their way through this maze with a touch of whimsy and the wink of an eye.

© Clemens Ascher