Clare Strand

Gone Astray Details (2001) is one half of the Gone Astray Series which takes its title from Charles Dickens' nineteenth-century novella Gone Astray, a story about a young child becoming lost in the city. Drawing on this literary reference, Strand explores ideas of uncertainty, disorientation, and the ways in which stories are constructed.

The work examines the boundary between documentary photography and fiction. Rather than documenting real events, Strand creates carefully staged photographs that resemble forensic evidence, crime scenes, or unexplained discoveries. The images are deliberately ambiguous, encouraging viewers to search for clues and construct their own narratives without ever arriving at a single, definitive explanation. In doing so, Strand questions photography's traditional role as a reliable record of reality and highlights its ability to create uncertainty as well as truth. Gone Astray Details was photographed in Clerkenwell, London, an area closely associated with the medieval Miracle Plays, where the streets became temporary stages for the performance and interpretation of religious stories. Clerkenwell, located just outside the old City of London walls, was once rural land before being absorbed by the city's rapid expansion. This rich historical setting informs Strand's work, with the photographs repeatedly exploring the tension between the urban and the rural, the historical and the contemporary, and the real and the imagined.