Discarded packaging, broken toys and scraps of fabric become unexpected compositions in Out of Place, a photographic project by Millennium Images contributor Zoë Barker.
Drawn to the beauty of the ordinary and the stories held within everyday objects, Barker uses rubbish collected on her local beach in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, to explore what remains of the things we throw away. The project brings together two related series, 100 Fragments and The Lostling Tins, finding moments of beauty in discarded materials while confronting the environmental reality they represent.
100 Fragments
Since August 2023, Barker has been timing how long it takes to collect one hundred fragments of rubbish from the beach. Predominantly plastic, but also including metal and fabric, each collection is arranged on a black circular tray and photographed. Each image takes its title from the time spent gathering its contents.
The shortest collection time recorded in the contributor’s account is just four minutes and six seconds: one fragment every 2.46 seconds. The project will eventually comprise one hundred photographs, presented together in a 10 × 10 grid.
The Lostling Tins
In The Lostling Tins, Barker arranges carefully selected beach finds in tins sourced from car boot sales and junk shops. These lost and broken objects, or “lostlings”are brought together in compositions that give them a new setting and invite a closer look. Removed from the shoreline, objects that might otherwise be overlooked become intriguing combinations of colour, texture and form.
The appeal of Barker’s arrangements sits uneasily alongside what they contain. Familiar objects and fragments of packaging offer traces of everyday life, while their accumulation points to the consequences of consumption and waste. By drawing our attention to what has washed ashore, Out of Place asks us to consider not only what we discard, but where it goes, and what it leaves behind.
Work from Out of Place is currently on show at Quay Arts in Newport, Isle of Wight, as part of The Ryde Art Collective’s exhibition, running until 8 November 2026.
