Jaime Welsh’s new photographs are set within two fortified institutions built to preserve knowledge and wealth. Through a layered process of reconfiguration, he transformed these interiors into spaces that follow their own internal order, at once oneiric and uncanny.

Beneath the ground, a labyrinth of safe-deposit boxes conceived as ultimate structures of security and secrecy. Above, a boardroom lined with gilded portraits spanning eras of monarchy and dictatorship. The children who appear within these spaces remain enigmatic, turned away or vacant in expression. They evoke a moment in childhood when the self is being formed, after which nothing can be undone.

Both photographs are enclosed in water-gilded 24-carat gold frames. The gesture recalls the history of painting as an emblem of authority while engaging with the quiet pleasure of looking that runs through Welsh’s practice.

Welsh treats architecture not as backdrop but as a living organism, bearing memory, trauma, and ideology within its walls. The spaces emerge as monuments that both guard and suffocate — sites where power is ritualised, yet unsettled by the presence of those who will inherit.