Sheet Music Archive – Unlimited Magazine

A couple of months ago I was given an assignment by Unlimited magazine to photograph David Dell. The Sheet Music Archive is located at the former site of the National Centre for Biosecurity and Disease Control (which has now move to the site next door) on Ward Street in Upper Hutt. The whole site has the appearance of an abandoned town, with numerous dirty, empty institutional-style buildings, desolate spaces with no human presence (except for myself and David Dell) and vegetation that is gradually asserting its dominance and creeping across and through unused tarmac.

The Sheet Music Archive itself is housed in a small, dark portacabin and is filled with boxes of, and random stacks of sheet music. Being run by volunteers, it might not be the most modern of archives but has its own chaotic charm, which to me suits the idea (at least visually) of an archive. Below are portraits of David Dell, who is the lead volunteer for the Sheet Music Archive.