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Volume 5 of the Crude Metaphors collection, brings together the photographs of Roger Ballen and the words of Adam Ganz to produce Elemental.

'The armchairs were where he explained to me his chemical philosophy. €We'€™re simple enough creatures, Michael,€ he said. We just want to survive and reproduce and everything else is just designed to make that happen. All our emotions are just various manifestations of chemicals in our body.' - Adam Ganz

Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950 but for over 30 years he has lived and worked in South Africa. Ballen's strange and extreme works confront the viewer and challenge them to come with him on a journey into their own minds as he explores the deeper recesses of his own. His previous books include Dorps: Small Towns of South Africa (1986), Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa (1994), Outland (2000), Shadow Chamber (2005), Boarding House (2009), Asylum of the Birds (2014).

Adam Ganz is Reader in Screenwriting at Royal Holloway University of London. He studied at Cambridge and Bristol Universities and the National Film and TV School. He writes for screen stage and radio - his 2013 BBC play The Gestapo Minutes was nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award for best single drama. His short films have been shown at Telluride, Newport Rhode Island and Karlovy Vary film festivals. He recently spent a month as a Harry Ransom Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.