Max Creasy’s photographic exhibition Bad Language explores the relationship between the snapshot and architecture. Collaborating with a group of young, formally trained architects—Kastler Skjeseth, Takeshi Hayatsu, OMMX, Sauter von Moos, Weyell Zipse, and Lütjens Padmanabhan—he investigates the idiosyncratic, humane, and humorous sensibilities (and possibilities) of the architectural image.

Creasy’s architectural photography has moved away from the formal nature of ‘New Objective’ photography (characterised by clinical documentary views) towards an idiosyncratic language that uses the ‘snapshot’ to explore the vernacular aspects of photography and architecture. This use of the snapshot within architectural photography can be considered a form of ‘bad language’ as it goes against polished and established architectural codes.

The creative team behind the exhibition includes photographer Max Creasy, curator Guillermo Fernández-Abascal and graphic designer Wayne Daly. The exhibition will be accompanied by an essay by architectural historian Frida Grahn, that delves into the historic and current links between the Architectural Association (AA) and ETH Zurich.

MAX CREASY is an Australian/Norwegian visual artist living and working between London and Berlin. His photographic practice explores the vernacular and everyday in the urban environment. His work has been widely exhibited at commercial and institutional galleries including most recently at the National Museum, Oslo, Norway (2023) and POST Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2024) as well as at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne and the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Recent publications include How Things Look (InOtherWords, 2024) and In Miami in the 1980s: The Vanishing Architecture of a ‘Paradise Lost’. (König Books, 2022)

GUILLERMO FERNÁNDEZ-ABASCAL is a Practice Fellow at the University of Sydney and co-founder of the office GFA2 (Gabriel and Guillermo Fernández-Abascal). Based between Sydney, Australia, and Santander, Spain, his recent work destabilises the dichotomy between research and buildings, and includes diagrams, exhibitions, publications, housing, and public buildings across the globe. His projects include the books Regional Bureaucracy (Perimeter Editions, 2022) and Analogue Images (Perimeter Editions, 2024); the Enaire Foundation building in Santander, and the Murrin Bridge Preschool and Community Hub in regional NSW.

WAYNE DALY is a London-based graphic designer and co-director of Daly & Lyon. Before setting up his own practice, he worked for ten years as lead graphic designer in the Architectural Association Print Studio. Daly’s recent projects include design for the eponymous Herzog & de Meuron exhibition (Royal Academy of Arts, 2023), exhibition and catalogue design for The Imaginary Institution of India (Barbican Art Gallery, 2024) and Superposition magazine (2020– ongoing). He is currently a visiting professor on the MA Type Design programme at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL).

Image: Kanzlei Strasse, 2021, Max Creasy.

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these by emailing publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk. Please note that there is no step-free access to the first floor, where this exhibition is on display.