WONDER &WANDER
ISSUE 1
WELCOME
Thank you for stopping by to take a look. Wonder&Wander is the name of my 2017 writing and photographic portfolio. This year has been a year of small adventures and big thoughts. I hope you enjoy your visit! Dani Cole is a final year undergraduate student at Queen Mary University of London. She is studying BA (Hons) English. She is currently a content editor for PEACH Magazine, and will be a volunteer WWI Researcher for The Royal Parks in 2018.
All images are Š Dani Cole unless stated otherwise
VSCO
or
Digital technology has progressed in
leaps and bounds over the past decade. Whilst I may have a soft spot for the old 35mm camera, there is no denying that smartphones have caught up in terms of their photographic abilities. But good photographs need good editing: there are a plethora of apps that can provide a relatively cheap (or free!) way of making your images look professional.
iPhone + Afterlight
Afterlight? Where the quality of smartphone images has improved markedly, so has post-editing software. I have been a longtime user of VSCO, but recently came across Afterlight. I wondered how they would fare when compared. So, I set out on a lesuirely walk across the moor and took some snaps.
Afterlight is easy to use and has an impressive range of free film presets, including their 'burn' effects. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between your phone snap and the real 35mm thing. The novelty wears off after a while and then you're stuck with some average filters that don't do many favours for your photos. Favourite presets: Idaho and Equinox Final verdict: Cheap and cheerful Like Afterlight, VSCO is also straightforward and is free to download. I'd say VSCO was a more sophisticated app for those who really want to get into their photography. I've been using it for a while and know I can depend on the app to deliver subtle but impactful tones for my landscape photographs. The A6 preset is also very good for true-to-life skintones. Favourite presets: C3 and A6 Final verdict: Professional and powerful results
Fanad Lighthouse, Ireland. iPhone + VSCO
PEAT
For Trevor Cole
They still cut for the peat out here. The boys stack it in neat, brown loaves At the sides of the road; or it gets pushed Into plasticky sacks and then piled, Waiting for later transportation. Everywhere is littered bright with them: Those old coal and composting bags That slump out by the foot of Errigal, MuckishThey’re an eyesore, my father says unhappily. He hates the stuff. Peat disintegrates into A fine powder and makes a mess of his house.
FAT I am sixteen years old and I am overweight. Not full-cheeked with the puppy-fat Of adolescence, but truly fat! Around this time I use the word sturdy When I think of my body. I am sturdy Like a well-pastured hill pony: Brown and round and dependable.
"YOU'RE NOT DOING ANTHING FOR US" WHEN HUMAN LIFE NO LONGER HAS VALUE Originally published on PoliticsMeansPolitics.com
On the morning of 14th June 2017the day after my 21st birthday- I awoke to the familiar sound of a helicopter over Shepherd’s Bush. It is a sound that is instantly recognisable: a low, incessant thrum that cuts through the noise of London traffic. I remember that it was a bright, sunlitmorning, yet I also remember that there was a distinct uneasiness about the helicopter’s noise- it was constant, unfading, loud. When my boyfriend drew the curtains, it soon became apparent that there was more than one helicopter, and that they were hovering, circling away, then returning. Something was amiss- had there had been a road accident? It was about 8:30am, so not an unreasonable thought given that London’s rush-hour is notorious. It was shortly after we realised that a tower block a few miles north from us had been incinerated in one of the worst building fires to ever take place. It had raged whilst we had slept. By midday, from our location near Shepherd’s Bush Green, only a thin line of dark smoke could be seen rising into the air. There was no need for the tragedy to be sensationalised. The photographs that followed in the hours and days to come spoke for themselves. Grenfell Tower had been- quite literally- a towering inferno. The loss of human life is calculated by the number of known deaths. This number is an easily digestable
figure- 2, 54, 70, 150- so in the aftermath of a tragedy, objective facts are first to take precedence over the emotional and psychological impacts. It is known that at least 80 people have perished in the Grenfell Tower fire, but a definitive death toll will not be available until the end of this year. It may even taken longer than that. It is possible that some victims will never be identified. Imagine filling a room with 80 children, women, and men. Now empty that room. When I first moved to London, it was striking to see in places that council housing and luxury housing shared the same street. It was strange to witness clean, charming brickwork and immaculate gardens staring out at the flats and tower blocks that looked ugly in comparison. Cheap. Ugly. Eyesore. Here lies the crux of the issue: the Grenfell Tower fire highlighted the living conditions and treatment of Britain’s poorest citizens. Jutting into the sky, the charred remains of Grenfell Tower are a testament to London’s social inequality. It soon emerged that Grenfell Tower had undergone a £1o million refurbishment- for the benefit of its wealthy neighbours- and yet the building had no working sprinkler system. Rydon, the contractor that carried out the work, stated on their website that: ‘Externally, rain screen cladding, replacement windows and curtain
wall façades have been fitted giving the building a fresher, modern look.’ This ‘fresher, modern look’ would later prove to be deadly, as the cladding used was comprised of aluminium and a polyethylene core. This material is highly combustible, unlike glass reinforced concrete (GRC) which is fire resistant (FR) and used in luxury apartment complexes. It is stunning to realise that the reason that flammable cladding was opted for, was so that refurbishment costs could be cut by £1 million. What enraged me- like so many others- was that the building’s aesthetic value was of greater concern than the value of human life. The final price that was paid was 80 dead, with the promise of many more. A month on from this disaster, the investigative process is still in disarray. Kensington council leader Elizabeth Campbell is accused of hiding from survivors, similar to accusations launched at Prime Minister Theresa May when she visited the site of the tragedy. One survivor was reported to have told Ms Campbell, ‘you’re not doing anything for us […] we don’t exist, we don’t count for anything.’ The subsequent relocation of survivors into a luxury apartment complex highlighted once again the extent of social inequality and segregation: some residents of the Kensington Row apartments expressed concerns and objections to the arrival of Grenfell Tower survivors. Why? Because of fears that property values would depreciate.
I have no doubt that the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire firmly believe that the government’s hands are soaked in blood, and they should rightly be angry. The cause of the fire was an accident, but the lethal conditions in which the Grenfell Tower residents lived in were deliberately created. The cladding was known to be flammable, and is banned on all UK high-rise buildings. Someone somewhere approved the use of this material, with the knowledge of the danger it posed against human life. The message this decision has sent is clear: unless you are wealthy, unless you have power, you do not matter. The value of human life should not be measured against the figures within a bank account. The 80 children, women, and men who suffocated to death or who died in desperate attempts to escape the fire- and whose remains needed to be identified-were trapped by the government’s failings. Their deaths were absolutely avoidable. They should not be forgotten. It is easy to be dazzled by London’s bright lights and the thrill of living in a metropolis, as I was when I first arrived to study at university. But dig a little deeper and you will realise how thin this veneer of wealth and glamour is. When the poorest and the most vulnerable within our society are silenced and are killed, it is imperative that those who are able to campaign and fight for justice, continue to do so.
HOMELANDS:
THE QUESTION OF IDENTITY
The original essay is from a piece I wrote for the Queen Mary English Society Journal in 2015. Then it was revised and published on Medium, 18th February 2017. Again rewritten here. This was a response to the recent election of Donald Trump and the subsequent expressions of xenophobia toward immigrants and members of the migrant community within the US. Photographic project can be found here: https://www.danicolephotography.com/whatwasmyname/
I am so often asked by many people, “where do you come from?” It is usually asked in a sincere way, sparked by curiosity and not from malice. A few will hazard a guess: The Philippines? Peru? Thailand? I usually tell people I am from Devon, an answer which seems to disappoint. They were hoping for something more exotic. This answer also sometimes elicits subtle hostility- “No, I mean where do you come from?” Though I was not born in this country, I am a British citizen as of 1998. If I am feeling generous, I tell them of my adoption and migration from country to country: Cambodia to Singapore to England. “Ah, Cambodia!” Someone once said, nodding their head enthusiastically. “I know where that is, it’s in Africa.” I had to correct them, and direct them to a world map. Another person was impressed. “But you speak English so well!” I am lucky; being adopted is acceptable. God forbid if I was actually born here- I would have to go back generations in order for people to try and to invalidate my existence here. The truth is, Cambodia is not my home. It never has been and never will be. I know nothing of its culture, its language. I know fragments of its dark history and of the violence it has suffered — it is a country that has been scarred by genocide. When I was eight, there was one book I loved to read. It was First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung. Hardly appropriate reading for an eight year old, but I was fascinated. Of course, I couldn’t comprehend the extent of violence or brutality that had occurred. My eight-year-old self could only grasp that the Khmer Rouge were bad. Pol Pot was bad. The word genocide held no meaning for me. I had no experience of violence or starvation. All I had was a childish pride in Cambodia; it was my country — despite the atrocities, my people had survived and lived on. I went back for the first time in July 2013. Since my adoption eighteen years ago, I had never visited Cambodia. I was apprehensive, excited. I was sure I would experience sudden bursts of memory, a ‘ta-dah!’ moment of realisation the moment I was reunited with the soil my birthplace. I was disappointed. The landscape was strange and unfamiliar. Cambodia’s people were not my people; their faces mirrored mine, and yet I felt nothing. I was a stranger. I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I was slightly relieved. On the other, I was sad. It felt as if I was grieving for something I never had. I cannot romanticise or become nostalgic about Cambodia. I have no memories of it. It is not my country, it is no home.
*** When I was successfully adopted, my mother and father had a visit from a social worker. “When will you,” the woman purportedly asked my parents, “tell her she is adopted?” This question caused suppressed laughter and looks of disbelief. Surely it would be obvious? A brown baby with Caucasian parents? I do not feel- and have never felt- that I ‘straddle two cultures’ (as written by Salman Rushdie in his essay ‘Imaginary Homelands’). I am firmly cemented in one culture, trying to look into another, sometimes with interest and sometimes not. It is only recently, following certain political events that I have come to think about my identity. Who deserves to belong? And where do they belong? This question is encapsulated well within Sally Morgan’s My Place: ‘You know we’re not Indian, don’t you? Jill mumbled. ‘Mum said we’re Indian.’ ‘Look at Nan, does she look Indian?’ ‘I’ve never really thought about how she looks. Maybe she comes from some Indian tribe we don’t know about.’ ‘Ha!’ That’ll be the day! You know what we are, don’t you?’ ‘No, what?’ ‘Boongs! We’re boongs!’ I could see Jill was unhappy with the idea. Here, Morgan comes to the realisation that she is of Aboriginal descent, something which carries incredible social stigma in Australia. Though Morgan is Australian in every sense of the word, her Aboriginal identity was the one which defined her. The derogatory term ‘boong’ highlights – even in 1980s Australia- the extent of entrenched racism toward the Aboriginal community. Recent reports on Indigenous health have shown that statistically, the percentage of Aboriginal Australians suffering from poorer socio-economics and a lower quality of health is markedly higher than non-Indigenous Australians. Who deserves to belongeconomically, socially, emotionally- it would seem, is up to the descendants of European settlers. Though I was never misled in terms of my ethnic identity, I never truly acknowledged that I was Asian. I am British, but my ethnicity will always set me apart. Living in a predominantly white community, with Caucasian parents and family can pose a few dilemmas. One cousin, up until the age of eleven, didn’t know I was adopted. I asked a housemate of mine whether I was a ‘coconut’- her reply was, “No, you’re white!” I have never thought of myself as being ‘white’, and using terms of colour to label ethnicity can be problematic. When discussing colour, it is difficult to separate from the fact of colonial policies of segregation, Jim Crow Laws, and more recently, the South African Apartheid. But in my flatmate’s exclamation of my ‘whiteness’, I understood what she meant. It was in reference to my mentality, mannerisms, and cultural upbringing: I have known only British
culture, I speak only English. I do not share the bilingual talents that many young British Asians have, nor am I influenced by the convergence of the traditional and Western world. I have always known my skin colour to be different from my family’s, and whilst it is possible to be confused about ethnicity, this has not happened. I would suggest I have rejected my racial heritage- or if rejection is too strong a word- then I propose I have resisted to embrace it as it is of no utility to me. Reading of instances in America where individuals and families are being deported, I can understand the disbelief and anger. If you have grown up within one culture, it can be catastrophic to be thrown into one deemed by others to be ‘your own’. If people are to be judged according their ancestry, and thus deported to their ‘country to origin’, then the majority of Americans would be in for an unpleasant shock. Where you are ‘from’ should never define who you are.
PORTRAITURE
P O R T R A I T U R E
35mm and digital photographs taken between 2014-17 For more images and project descriptions please visit: danicolephotography.com
LIFESTYLE PHOTOGRAPHY
What I've been... What I've been... Reading The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin
Watching Black Mirror, Netflix Blue Planet II, BBC One
Listening "You" by Gold Panda "Hey Now" by London Grammar "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga "Fish Friday" by Kelis
CONTACT & LINKS Email: daniacole@outlook.com Website: danicolephotography.com Blog: whocanwonder.wordpress.com Twitter: @whocanwonder