Claustro / Agoraphobia

Returning to this series by Alfred Ko, there are photographs of people, objects and cities, but no pictures of any dynamic interactions among them. Claustrophobia happens when one is isolated in a sealed space, a place that offers no ready exit and where all means of egress are closed. The resultant anxiety of entrapment triggers physical reactions that can include difficult breathing, loss of motor control and asphyxia.

This is a basic definition that applies to something physically tangible, or a space with a form. Cities are notions that we have created, architecture is man-made, and relationships between men and urban spaces are also human constructs. The irony in all this is that humans end up floundering in the middle of the very cities that they created.