A deep personal story also resonates throughout the submission of writer, professional photographer, and doctoral researcher Brian Morgan. No Safety Net is part of a larger body of work that is a pictorial and narrative account of five years Brian spent journeying at various times with a small family-based travelling circus community as it traversed the North of England and Scotland from 2018-2023.
As the title suggests, Brian’s work is a play on words about circus life, but it is also a narrative about his own personal circumstances. ‘The title emerged quickly as a metaphor for the precarious material and emotional existence lived out daily by the circus troupe’, Brian explains. ‘A metaphor, therefore, for the vulnerability of people and strength of purpose needed to survive in a unique and challenging world. A metaphor, too, for my own vulnerability brought on by personal trauma and life-changing illness, and the emotional strength I drew from their presence as I journeyed with them at various times for over five years.’
He was clearly enthralled by the troupe, becoming adopted as he, figuratively speaking, ran away with the circus. He takes up the story of his submission: ‘It begins with a journey after the show has finished, through the hinterland of the real, behind the scenes, world of circus – no safety net, vulnerable, astringently stripped of its make-up, a world I only ever perceived in black and white. How else to reflect a place at once antithetical to the beguiling and spectral world of the “big top”? What better device for exposing the stark binary choices forced upon the group as they edged their way towards safety along a tightrope – stretched out before them by the forces of fate – between survival and oblivion during the worst of the Covid pandemic? I wanted to capture the egalitarian nature of circus: the aesthetic and grotesque, the achingly beautiful, the lonely, claustrophobic, humorous and heartbreakingly sad manifestations of circus life, freed of the influence and hierarchies created by colour.’
The time he spent with the circus, a literal and metaphoric journey, gave him the comforting conditions in which he could address his personal loss and grief. ‘Telling their story through my photography is the only way I know of repaying the debt I owe Olympia (the ring mistress), the Kirilova Family and Big Kid Circus. For they taught me, by their example, the meaning of hope, illuminating with a kindly light the darkest recesses of depression and despair.’
Yuma and Nicci: Redcar 2019. The Counting House (Box Office). Vulnerability is a feature of every aspect of Circus Life. However, the vulnerability most feared in any travelling circus is its inability -for any reason - to put on a show. Everyone in a travelling circus knows survival depends upon one simple and ruthless mathematical formula: no show = no money, no money = no food, no safety net. Never was a metaphor made more profound than through the vicissitudes of the Pandemic.Brian Morgan ARPS
Julia and Crew: Glasgow 2023. A Role Model for women and girls across the World, Billi’s daughter Julia Kirilova, M.A., Events Manager, Circus Visionary, Performer, Electrician, Nurse, Social Worker, Confessor, Steeplejack, Roughneck, someone who never asks anyone to do anything she does not do herself, leads the Sisyphean task associated with the logistics of creating, disassembling, moving, and re-creating again in another town, another field, a community the size of a small village.Brian Morgan ARPS
Serge and Silvio: Morecambe 2020. ‘Head Bloodied but Unbowed’: The speed at which Covid first spread caught the Circus off-guard and quarantined on a site in the seaside town of Morecambe. Drained of its lifeblood audience, the Circus rapidly went into virtual cardiac arrest. As freelance performers and precluded from State Aid, they became dependent on the alms of the local community: Charity, the safety net of last resort. But signs of self-reliance and resilience were everywhere.Brian Morgan ARPS
Anastasia and Schtorm: Whitburn 2021. Incongruity is everywhere in the Circus, so I fought to resist using the sofa for one of those ‘beautiful girl in disconsonant place’ pictures. It just seemed too contrived. But Anastasia wanted her photo taken. By chance, so too did Schtorm, Julie’s pet and Circus guard dog, who appeared from nowhere. No humans or animals were harmed in the making of this spontaneous and wholly uncontrived photograph.Brian Morgan ARPS
‘Babuska’: Ashington 2023. Yulia Ivanova Andreeva. ‘Babuska’ to all who know and love her. Queen Mother (to Billi the Circus Owner), Grandmother to Julia. One-time Circus Artiste, Gymnast, philosopher and art lover. The hand-painted Munch was a gift from a young art student. A photographer of considerable skill, she handled my 1950’s Mercury (which she now owns!) like a pro. A mother figure to all, Yulia has seen too much of life to take it seriously … just don’t mess with her.Brian Morgan ARPS
Julia and Billi: Glasgow Dec 2019. ‘Sounds like a Plan’: The table is etched with the lyrics of contemporary songs. Every year, at the same time, final decisions are made as to which of the Acts will be asked to return for another season. The future of people’s lives and livelihoods can depend on the decisions made here. Some decisions are easy, but most are not. Ironically, the song ‘Sounds like a Plan’ speaks of the need to live in the moment and let the future take care of itself.Brian Morgan ARPS
Anastasia: Lanark 2020. Anastasia warms up in the confines of her ‘new’ caravan before the season’s final show. Close by lies the burnt-out shell of her previous ‘home’ completely destroyed by fire in less than a minute, just two days previously, along with every vestige of her material life. She was lucky to escape with her life, and with the Troupe’s help, the rebuilding process began the next day. Another synoptic metaphor - as if needed - of the vulnerability and strength of Circus.Brian Morgan ARPS
Italo: Barnsley 2019. Sagacious as any Shakespearian Fool and with the physique of a top-class athlete, Italo is the only Artiste to have remained with the Circus for all the time I have known them. His clown character is the alter ego of an intensely cerebral and contemplative persona. Italo hasn’t seen his family in Chile since he joined the Circus in 2018. ‘Circus is my home now,’ he says.Brian Morgan ARPS
Amalia and Olympia. Barnsley. 2018. Alpha and Omega: It was Olympia, the Ring Mistress who - like an annunciating Angel in a Tintoretto painting - first brought the visceral and vital otherworld of Circus crashing through the grief-constructed walls of my life. Until then, I had never seen a Circus. Afterwards, I was blind to anything else. My wife and I are Godparents to Olympia’s new baby. Amalia (pictured) was the first smiling face to welcome me into the Circus. When Olympia goes, I go.Brian Morgan ARPS
Mikial and Yami South Shields 2019. A crowded Big Top in summer can generate desert-like temperatures. Warm air condenses as it reaches the tent roof and falls as light rain onto the stage, making it perilously slippery. Mikial and Yami perform on roller skates; Yami spins vigorously whilst tethered to Mikial’s neck. They contemplate the safety of performing again following an earlier fall. The risk is real, but the show must go on, and moments later, they are back on stage. Again, they fall.Brian Morgan ARPS
Myrelis, Milli & Yasi. Sheffield 2021. Their tiny caravan has been home for nine months. In such a compressed space, camaraderie is quickly displaced by claustrophobia. A reason often cited for the failure of U.K.-based artistes to succeed in U.K.-based Travelling Circuses is their inability to adapt to such conditions. The resilience of foreign Artistes whose lives at home are in every way more restricted and claustrophobic is - out of necessity - much stronger than their U.K. counterparts.Brian Morgan ARPS
Myrelis and Pepe: Blaydon, 2021. ‘And the Waters Receded’ (Genesis.7. 11. 24). Whenever possible on soft ground, a ‘rain moat’ is dug to channel water away from the Big Top. But not this time. Power lines became submerged, and with the exponential risk, the Artistes were refusing to perform. It was the only time I ever saw a fissure appear in the rock-solid foundations of the Troupe. Pepe is doing his best to intervene practically, if not divinely, as the show goes on.Brian Morgan ARPS
Anastasia: Sheffield 2022. A disused industrial site, another flooded Big Top. The kaleidoscopic mix of water, Diesel oil and green moss looked almost verdant. The performance had to end mid-show due to revised COVID regulations. I perceived in Nastia’s reflected gaze the water nymph Rusalka, the heroine of Dvorak’s’ Opera and its Libretto, a tale of poisoned water, a verdant, vibrant world being sucked of its lifeblood and a shift from abundance to sadness, decay and loss in the World.Brian Morgan ARPS
Myrelis and Amalia: Glasgow 2019. Children are everywhere and nowhere in a family-run Circus like this. Circus provides a world rich in unique experiences for children. However, an itinerant lifestyle that offers little opportunity for social interaction with same-age peers or other adults can sometimes make it difficult for children to form the kind of meaningful attachments that young people thrive upon. It’s an ever-present dichotomy both for Circus parents and would-be parents.Brian Morgan ARPS
Valeria: Ashington 2022. Valeria peaks through a hole in the stage curtain. As the threat of COVID recedes, the audiences flood back. The same as last year, she is dressed as a marionette. Even amid the metaphor-rich environment of Circus, I cannot help but use a metaphoric device to compare everything she represented to me then and now. No longer an ‘object’ controlled by circumstance, she (they) are now ‘actors’ again, in control of their own destiny, their reward for never giving up hope.Brian Morgan ARPS
