Small hours

The city doesn’t sleep. It changes hands.

Empty chairs. A folded towel. A light left on. Elias Rook finds the quiet infrastructure of the night in places made for people who are temporarily somewhere else.

The photographs in Small hours are set between the last bus and the first delivery. Rook’s invented neighbourhood is built from familiar fragments: a laundrette window, a tiled threshold, the glow of a vending machine. Each place seems empty until the small evidence of use comes into view.

Working from the pavement, Rook allows windows and weather to sit between viewer and subject. Reflections layer the street over the interior. What looks like an invitation to enter also reminds us that we are outside, looking in. These are images about waiting as much as about work.

The installation follows the length of a single imagined night. A low reading table brings together the artist’s field notes on public light, shelter and the ordinary generosity of somewhere to sit.