Andrew Ward studied film and photography at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He has worked in Vancouver as a production assistant and since 1996 has been working as a first assistant director in the Los Angeles film industry.
For The Sofas of LA, Ward’s current project, he has become a photographer and chronicler of more than 600 abandoned sofas on the streets of Los Angeles. Ward approaches and photographs each sofa or mattress as if it were a formal photo portrait. Each is placed in the middle of the frame with the city falling off in the background, but still giving clues to its location and neighbourhood within the city.
The genesis of this photography project came as a response to the growing blight of abandoned sofas, mattresses, and other cast-off furniture that appears on the streets and sidewalks of Los Angeles. What was once the centerpiece of someone’s home sits abandoned on a city sidewalk. They have become part of the fabric of LA, reflecting on the transient nature of the inhabitants of the city and acting as a sign of the disposable nature of our consumer-driven world.
