Delali explores the aesthetic and emotional elements of water in an adventurous and empathetic fashion. Using strong hues of royal blue, subdued shades of tennis court clays and almost neon green astroturf, the colour spectrum of both Wimbledon and the material space of playing are fused immaculately. The images were shot over a span of two weeks with Delali’s friends and family, children from the Wimbledon Junior Tennis Initiative and other Wimbledon Community Tennis Programmes in London. They were then exhibited along the queue for the Wimbledon Championships, which concluded yesterday.
To underline the playful nature of the images, Delali created cardboard props with tactile, textured papers, reflecting the imperfect nature of imagination. With some props taking on cosmic shapes such as swirls and stars, imagination is respected and represented with a galactic largeness. In other photographs, imagination happens in quiet solitude, or immersion inside of a chess game. “The images capture spontaneity: children rolling wooden blocks, spinning, jumping, resting,” says Delali. “Their movement is unscripted, intuitive, and honest.”