British Journal of Photography magazine: Out of Sight (March 2020)

This month’s issue has a focus on bodies of work that ruminate on those places that are hidden or forgotten. Our cover of Mark Mahaney’s debut monograph, Polar Night, a poetic narration of the most northerly town in the US, Utqiagvik, that is plunged into darkness for two months each year.

Martin Bogren turns to intuition and focuses on the method for his latest project about traditional summer balls in the Swedish countryside.

An Arctic town in Alaska, known as “ground zero for climate change”, and where with winter comes with two months of darkness, provided Mark Mahaney with the impetus for his first personal project.

The one exception to our focus of places on the outskirts this month, is Federico Estol’s Shine Heroes; an empowerment of the vilified shoeshiners of La Paz, turning their working lives into a fictional tale of superheroes.

Witnessing Iran’s housing crisis, Hashem Shakeri captures the bitterness and desolation as building construction stalls in the ghostly satellite towns of Tehran.

In Agenda, we present our round-up of the best books and exhibitions to check out this month. Plus, a new book that embarks on an investigation into the elusive portrait at the heart of Roland Barthes’ seminal Camera Lucida, and previews of the German Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie and Black Shade Projects in Morocco. Our Any Answers this month is Aperture Foundation’s executive director, Chris Boot.

Our projects this month look at places that have found new purpose: a former mining town in Belgium by Filippo Maria Ciriani, a knife workshop in Sheffield by Theo Deproost, and a disused airstrip in Romania by Mihai Sovaiala.

We speak to Crack Magazine’s art director, Ade Udoma for our Creative Brief this month, and catch up with Agnès B whose new cultural venue in Paris is dedicated to art, photography and the environment.