Benny Profane (RRB PhotoBooks, July 2019) is the result of Ken Grant’s long-term engagement with a landfill on the shores of the River Mersey in North West England. Grant, who was born in Liverpool in 1967, regularly photographed the site between 1989 and 1997, focusing on the relationship between the local people and the vast landfill. Though a few of the images were included in Reportage magazine in 1991, a majority of the images in Benny Profane are previously unpublished.
The images in Benny Profane were made slowly and deliberately, the working style for which Grant is known. The title of the book, borrowed from a character in Thomas Pynchon’s novel V, refers to a man who embarked on a precarious journey that took him between goodness and profanity. Grant’s photographs capture people at at the landfill as they navigate their own journeys, looking for stability in a place and era where little was to be found.
In 1995, operations at the landfill ceased and the site is now part of a nature reserve. Benny Profane is a sustained account of an area and those who shaped it during its last years.
Ken Grant’s work is held in numerous collections including MoMA, New York and the Folkwang Museum, Essen amongst others. He currently teaches Photography at Belfast School of Art.
Benny Profane
By Ken Grant
RRB PhotoBooks (July 2019)
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