Ghosts in the Field

Murray Ballard brings Ghosts in the Field to Phoenix Art Space from 3 October to 1 November, with a private view on Friday 2 October from 6pm to 9pm. The exhibition is in the Window Gallery, and it's part of Brighton Photo Fringe, the UK's widest-reaching photography festival, which has run since 2003 on artist-led participation and self-curated shows.

Ghosts in the Field is a long-term project by Ballard, a Brighton-based photographer and filmmaker born in 1983. He's been shooting in Salento, in southern Italy, since 2012, documenting a region in the grip of profound environmental and social change. The Xylella fastidiosa pest has claimed more than 21 million olive trees there, and around that loss Ballard weaves together shifting traditions, migration, tourism, folklore and the fraying relationship between generations and the land. It's a region defined by what it's lost, and the work looks at what remains.

These images have been shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition 166 at the Saatchi Gallery, and the Royal Geographical Society. They were also at Photo Oxford 2025, where the work was selected as a winner. Ballard's wider practice has taken in cryonics, science and technology and the environment, so this sits within a broader interest in how we relate to the natural world and the things we leave behind.

Entry is free, and the gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 5pm, from 3 October through to 1 November. If you're around on the 2nd, the private view runs from 6pm to 9pm.