Artist Fiona Banner and Magnum photographer Paolo Pellegrin ventured back into the belly of the City of London—the scene of their earlier collaboration—for last night’s (9 September) launch of Banner’s Heart of Darkness. The glossy tome features Pellegrin’s images in The Counting House, a former Victorian banking hall in the heart of the capital’s financial district.
Pellegrin is best known for photographing scenes of conflict and disaster. His particular perspective on the places, people and rituals of London’s Square Mile—the activities of which have frequently contributed to the global tumult he records—chime brilliantly with the text of Joseph Conrad’s classic novella of trade, desire and corruption. The horror, the horror, indeed…