Ideal City

Roland’s ‘ideal city’ is a strange and beautiful series of images that deliberately and knowingly blends science with fiction. There are echoes of the great 18th century conceptual architect Louis Boullée in the imaginary, impossible structures that seem to outstrip their contexts, and a highly developed, almost cinematic sense of suggested narrative between the different images in the series as a whole. Technically sophisticated and working with (rather than against) the potential of digital technology, Roland’s work seems to have found precisely the right visual language for her subject, downplaying, rather than overworking the otherworldly aesthetic effects. It is quietly convincing and therefore very effective as a photographic vision of the future. —Simon Baker, photography curator at New Tate Modern Gallery