Architecture & Design 3rd Place

LIGHT/MASS is an ongoing series of alien urban landscapes found in cities across the United States. Owen Davies moved to New York City from England during the spring of 2020, days before the city shut down due to the global pandemic. Like many during that time, the photographer walked and cycled through empty streets, passing the time and getting a sense of his new home. He became fascinated with the strange-looking buildings he would stumble upon, looming suddenly when turning a corner. They felt like distinctly otherworldly structures, alien to the surrounding architecture and unobserved by passersby. Davies began seeking them out, deliberately looking for buildings designed by architects and planners who envisaged a bright utopian future for those living in America’s large cities.

Owen Davies is a British artist living and working in New York City. Exploring the eccentricities of the American psyche and its relationship to the built environment, Owen seeks out the strange, surreal and often overlooked landscapes within the spaces we inhabit. His work has been exhibited in Paris, London and Berlin and has been published in The New York Times and New York Magazine.