Sophie Hayes | Storage

Sophie Hayes’ Storage explores the secret life and unintentional narratives of the non-public spaces of major museums across Europe. The composition of Hayes’ images, their peculiar lighting and juxtapositions, conspire to make us question whether her images are purely documentary in nature or contrived stagings composed for the camera.

Storage began when Hayes gained the opportunity to record the Natural History archival collections from the National Museum in Prague when on a residency in the city in 2004. The objects were being transported from their long-term city centre home to an out of town, purpose-built, storage facility. Hayes was able to slip as an interloper into this flux to capture the transitional spaces and relationships created between origin and destination.

Over a period of almost 15 years Storage has explored other museums’ non-public locations, including the labyrinthine archival departments of the Natural History Museum, London. Despite the different idiosyncrasies of each institution, the spaces Hayes interrogates in Storage are always incomplete and invisible to public observations.

The objects wait for us in these supposed non-places, anticipate, and reflect on their own condition. Or are just piled up on top of each other, inert, until they are granted a role in public again.