Richard Fawcus documents material presence and affective traces at sites of charged, layered, or contested memory.

Textures of glass, sand, or bush-hammered concrete. Places you can smell. The pulse of life in zones of seeming absence. These images explore spaces of layered meaning and intensified perception. They make no claim to neutrality or impartiality, embracing instead a kind of sensory realism: not just records of place, but of being in place. How it felt to be there in that moment. 

⤊ Buzludzha Monument, Bulgaria.
The left column shows photographs taken by Artin Azinyan in the early 1980s. On the right, Richard Fawcus’s photographs from the 2010s revisit similar viewpoints to highlight the monument’s deteriorating condition. This selection was used in conservation campaigning, and also featured in a 2020 exhibition at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Prague.

Much of Richard’s photography connects with his academic research around themes of heritage and memory. Sometimes it adopts longitudinal dimensions too. He has revisited certain monuments year after year, documenting incremental changes: the spread of weeds, graffiti… official or unofficial demolitions… and in other places, community action, protests, or conservation work. Some of his work remembers places that no longer exist.

His photography has often been shared under the name Darmon Richter. This includes long-form photoessays about place, and travel, at Ex Utopia; and a sizeable database of architectural photos at Monumentalism.

Richard’s work has featured widely in the media, with specific projects profiled in places like Radio Free Europe and Arch Daily. In 2017, his photograph of an unfinished nuclear power plant in Cuba made the cover of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report.

His photos have additionally featured as: cover art for three novels; inserts in a Pink Floyd bootleg vinyl release; various album covers for French dub techno label Berg Audio; album art for the Bulgarian black metal band Drevna; and music video backdrops for synthpop two-piece Battery Operated Orchestra.