'Peripheries: British Landscapes' explores the boundaries between public, military and industrial space. The series is a record of military bases, training areas and industrialised landscapes accessible from public byways and paths. It bridges polarities between the photograph as document and the subjective expression of the photographer.

The ranges on Dartmoor and Salisbury Plain have been used for about 150 years for military practice. The discovery of observation posts and military structures transform and pierce an idyllic 'wild' landscape, overlaying it with human use and intervention. The images are a record of points of discovery in a journey through the British landscape, turning the familiar into the alien.

"Syz centres his camera on the observation posts that that are present in these landscapes that hold the dual status of sights of military manoeuvres and public enjoyment of open country. They appear sympathetic to the natural environment. At the same time, their purpose and the darkened apertures of the viewing posts carry a menacing sense of the military alteration of the land."

Charlotte Cotton, Contemporary Photography, Guardian newspaper, June 2004.

The environment we inhabit is overlaid with historical and political layers, which do not necessarily become apparent until the camera is focused on the fragments which hint at these underlying structures. I use the camera to record the alien within the everyday, but also to penetrate spaces that the public may not realise are open to them.