Mark Adams
Photography

Detours is a series of walks exploring fugitive zones - the spaces between tourist sites, ruins, construction sites and wastelands on the periphery of Mediterranean resorts. Photographed in the Canary Islands, Aegean and Ionian archipelagos between 2019 and 2024, the images mark the furthest easterly and westerly points of Europe forming an uncomfortable yet poetic dialogue between the gradual disappearance of local culture and rapidly developing attempts to accommodate a drive towards the commodification of place in response to global tourism.

Post-pandemic closures, resorts under construction, ongoing restoration of historic ruins, this amorphous terrain is a detour from the tourist experience, a vacation from the spectacle of the leisure society. These photographs are journeys through the uncertain, indeterminate zones beyond the comfort of the tourist experience, a spectacle of erasure and possibility.