Watch Roger Ballen’s disturbing psychological thriller, Theatre of the Mind
- Text by Alex King
- Photography by Roger Ballen
“Good art is enigmatic,” photographer Roger Ballen explains. “If you come to the real crucial nitty gritty about what life is, who you are, why life exists, where it came from and where it’s going: all these deep issues take you to the conclusion that it’s an enigma, you can’t put your finger on it. You really don’t understand it, you know you never will understand it and you’re left trying to define something that’s undefinable.”
Ballen’s latest project, Theatre of the Mind, is a short psychological thriller that explores the dark space between sanity and insanity, dream and reality. It develops a train of thought Ballen began a long time ago, in which he uses photography as a tool to explore the mind. He developed this idea in his recent book collaboration with writer Didi Bozzini, The House Project, which took the idea of living space as a metaphor for our interior lives.


Theatre of the Mind, grew out of a photographic installation he put on earlier this year at Sydney University’s school of art and design, in tunnels which were built as an insane asylum in the 1880s. “The surface buildings almost looked like a Van Gogh painting,” Ballen explains. “Underneath the university were dungeons connected by long tunnels, ultimately to the river, where they used to bring the patients to the insane asylum.” The idea for a film came to him spontaneously during the exhibition.
As Ballen’s work has shifted further and further away from pure documentary towards more composed work, some have seen his approach to be caricaturing his subjects’ often distressing situations. His discomforting work has at times been accused of exploitation, but Ballen sees himself more like surrealist playwright Samuel Beckett, exploring his own psyche.


“I’ve been doing photography for 50 years, so it’s been a long evolutionary process,” Ballen explains. “I’ve gone from somebody who quietly documented the reality around me to somebody who’s now trying to interrogate abstract ideas.”
“People don’t understand that if you take [photography] seriously, it’s no different to what paint is to a painter or what a pencil is to a writer,” he continues. “It’s tool to express oneself in the world – it’s a tool! More people use a camera than any other so-called artistic tool, but most use it superficially. But it can be a transforming tool, of the world around you and the world inside of you.”
Find out more about Roger Ballen’s work.
Latest on Huck
In the ’60s and ’70s, Greenwich Village was the musical heart of New York
Talkin’ Greenwich Village — Author David Browne’s new book takes readers into the neighbourhood’s creative heyday, where a generation of artists and poets including Bob Dylan, Billie Holliday and Dave Van Ronk cut their teeth.
Written by: Cyna Mirzai
How Labour Activism changed the landscape of post-war USA
American Job — A new exhibition revisits over 70 years of working class solidarity and struggle, its radical legacy, and the central role of photography throughout.
Written by: Miss Rosen
Analogue Appreciation: Emma-Jean Thackray
Weirdo — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, multi-instrumentalist and Brownswood affiliate Emma-Jean Thackray.
Written by: Emma-Jean Thackray
Meet the shop cats of Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan district
Feline good — Traditionally adopted to keep away rats from expensive produce, the feline guardians have become part of the central neighbourhood’s fabric. Erica’s online series captures the local celebrities.
Written by: Isaac Muk
How trans rights activism and sex workers’ solidarity emerged in the ’70s and ’80s
Shoulder to Shoulder — In this extract from writer Jake Hall’s new book, which deep dives into the history of queer activism and coalition, they explore how anti-TERF and anti-SWERF campaigning developed from the same cloth.
Written by: Jake Hall
A behind the scenes look at the atomic wedgie community
Stretched out — Benjamin Fredrickson’s new project and photobook ‘Wedgies’ queers a time-old bullying act by exploring its erotic, extreme potential.
Written by: Isaac Muk