Pale Wall

Forthcoming, summer 2026

Over a period of six months between 2014 and 2015, Gideon returned to a section of wall behind a shopping centre in Stretford, Greater Manchester, UK. He observed as people passed, paused, waited, and briefly inhabited the space. 

Pale Wall traces the subtle drama of everyday life: gestures and interactions, moments of stillness and reflection, tension and release. Made throughout autumn and winter, figures appear wrapped in coats, hoods raised, huddled together as rain falls and a cold wind blows. This liminal space — positioned between a main road and a shopping centre — becomes a stage. 

Making photographs when there was no direct sunlight on the wall, and from angles that excluded the surrounding context, Gideon used formal parameters to bring life into sharp focus against a muted backdrop. This restricted visual field presents the space as a self-contained world where the familiar is framed in isolation: expressions magnified, gestures held with dignity, the warmth of a woman’s hair glowing against the stark pale surface. Pale Wall evolves from a study of a space into a reflection on the human condition, oscillating between observation and introspection, between the real and the imagined.

During the six months, Gideon acquired loose fragments of the wall’s surface, gradually forming a collection.

This publication marks the first time Pale Wall is publicly available.

Book Series

Pale Wall is the first in a series of self-published books presenting work by Gideon Vass made between 2011 and the present. The next book, Estate, will be published in autumn 2026.