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All writings and articles are copyrighted and written by Š Jahnico Walcott-Park
CONTENTS 3 Contents 4-5 Clark & Pougnaud
14-15 Anoek Steketee
6-7 Cédric Delsaux
16-17 Lise Sarfati
8- 9 Dolron Désirée
18-19 Formento & Formento
10-11 Ellen Kooi
20-21 Anne Hardy
12-13 Chen Cheih-Jen
22-23 Anna Skladmann
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XLVI
49-50 I
61-62 VI
51-52 II
63-64 VII
53-56 III
65-66 VIII
57-58 IV
67-68 IX
59-60 V
69-70 X
CLARK & POUGNAUD
Clark & Pougnaud, Aurore éveillée, 2003
CLARK & POUGNAUD
CLARK & POUGNAUD The Theatre of Loneliness
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om Stoppard, a prolific playwright who has addressed themes of human rights, censorship and political freedom through his work from the mid 1960s through to this day, stated that what is done on the stage of a theatre is a direct reflection of what is happening in real life. “We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look at every exit as being an entrance somewhere else”. We are specifically looking at the idea that every exit is an entrance to a new stage for something to take place, and the art of seeing the reality behind what is acted before us. Put into context this quote could also be a useful preface when addressing the body of work by french photographers Christophe Clark and Virgine Pougnand. Raised in the theatre, Pougnand mother was an actress, and what inspired Pougnand were the sets she would she her mother performing on throughout her childhood, whilst at the same time both Pougnaud’s and Clark’s mothers were also painters. Before the duo had met up and started creating their body of work, Pougnand visited the states for 5 years and discovered full grown men; craftsmen; who worked on a 1:12 scale to create dollhouses and this fascinated her, and you can see this directly reflected in the images the duo have been working rigorously to create. Isolation, loneliness, separation and our relationship to these emotions are all defining elements of Clark and Pougnand body of work, yet rather than approaching these ideas specifically around individuals
it is portrayed within the spaces that they inhabit. Even when we are left with multiple figures within one image, we are made aware that although they inhabit the same room, they have their own lives, and share mixed emotions of their distance from one another. Clark and Pougnand attempt to evoke such emotions through the art of theatre; the man-made stage and it’s actors/actresses. By combining the classical with the traditional, Pougnands small scale, visually historical sets are sculpted, and Clarks actors are photographed and then digitally manipulated into the worlds that have been created, and it is here that we come back to what Stoppard said. The loneliness the artists are creating is acted, and manufactured, it is a fabrication to admire. But no matter the era the costume or scene which is being described we cannot deny the integrity of emotions, and how they directly reflect to the normality of real everyday life. In a sense, the photographs seen throughout Clark and Pougnauds body of work are more of a collection of the a concentrated human condition, rather than a series of melancholic tales. Where we are asked to empathise with our own loneliness and the loneliness of the people around us within this mediated world which we call ours. Christophe Clark Born in France 1963 After growing up with a family of photographers, taught himself digital photography and opened a studio in Paris at 20 years of age. Virgine Pougnand Born in France 1962 Moved to the USA in 1987 where she enrolled in the Parson School of Design and The Academy of Fine Art. She moved back to France in 1997, where she met Clark.
CÉDRIC DELSAUX
CÉDRIC DELSAUX
Now what happens when the “the story world” we look to be enveloped by starts to merge and become harder to distinguish from reality?
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n Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative Cyberspace Janet Murray talks about how we as narrative beings long to be immersed. How we long to merge with the narrative, to obliterate all sense of separation and to be enveloped in the mediated environment-the story world (MURRAY:1997). Now what happens when the “the story world” we look to be enveloped by starts to merge and become harder to distinguish from reality? To begin answering that question you need look no further than the Cédric Delsauxs body of work. Delsaux questions our relationship with the world by forcing us to become mentally aware of our desire to separate and escape to a place out of reach of our individual realities. He drives this through his ability to blur the boundaries, by using his images to create new time frames that lie between reality and fiction. Time frames that we find difficult to easily separate ourselves to, because the mediated worlds created actually seem like something we can achieve. Lying between insanity and lucidity, where elements of our own cultural pasts are trapped in our own selfaware present, we find it hard to completely doubt the validity of the fabricated worlds created, because they still speak truths to our history, through the the combination of costumes and environment. By admiring Delsaux images we are challenged with a relationship between time and space, and we are asked to acknowledge our own perceptions of inner escapism. Ponder on this, when we are subjected to a narrative to merge with, how do we react and follow suit when the mediated world has such a strong connection to our own reality? Do we reflect on our own worlds and find pity on the fact that we are not looking to escape to a world of a fiction; that is fabricated; but simply to a time in our past, a time that was reality we changed?
CÉDRIC DELSAUX
Cédric Delsaux, from series 1784, Date Unknown
DOLRON DÉSIRÉE
Dolron Désirée, from series Te dí todos mis sueños , Date Unknown
DOCUMENTARY AND THE STAGED IMAGE CAN COINCIDE TO CREATE STILL TRUTHFUL DEPICTIONS OF REALITY
DOLRON DÉSIRÉE
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t is vital to begin by concluding that documentary and staged photography can be closely linked together. If we look at photography throughout history, a lot of it is in fact staged, through the people and actions being photographed and even simply through the framing of images. So what lies within mind when viewing Delron Désirée’s body of work is that these are images that we can believe, images that do project reality, although they are without a doubt staged. Désirée was born in the Netherlands in 1963 and throughout her life has travelled all around the world. Her work reflects her travels, because as she journeys; whatever corner of the world she find herself in; she records a variety of exclusive personal records of her travels.These works seem to most famously revolve around a reportive photographic style, that is digitally enhanced to create richer versions of her own experience. Te dí todos mis sueños, is a series that directly reflects where documentary and the staged image can coincide to create still truthful depictions of reality. Tono Stano; a photographer that has worked meticulously with staged photography throughout his life; made a interesting statement saying “when I lie, I am closer to the truth than documentary photography” (STANO), and I think this makes for relevant statement to even Désirée’s series. We can’t document everything, there is limitations to what we can record within a frame, and limitations to what the camera has and will ever have access to, but when we hear or see truthful statements and stories, and then re-create a truthful experience, we find ourselves more consumed in it’s reality. This series captures the urban landscape of Cuba when at peace, whilst still in turmoil, and Désirée attempts to capture Cuba’s disastrous past within it’s own captivating nature of the present. She photographs the environments she finds herself in, and her images inspire viewers to fall into total immersion with the stories being told. Even though the aspects of staged photography sink well into her work we can’t help but understand and appreciate that what she is telling is true to the past and present of city she is inhabiting.
ELLEN KOOI
ELLEN KOOI
ELLEN KOOI
Ellen Kooi, Los Angeles Woestijn, 2007-2008
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etween 2000 and 2014, as part of her wider practice into investigating the representations of our relationship with the environment, Ellen Kooi challenged us to view the world as a dramatic narrative. Using existing cultural ideas of human interaction;with the landscape as a starting point; how both humans and landscapes are on equal footings when it comes to hierarchy of our world; and also studying nineteenth century psychological portraits, she painstakingly worked at created images that portrayed this intimate relationship. Kooi photographs are printed as large-scale panoramic’s and the scale of her pieces are an important aspect to the effect her work has on her viewers. The scale always her audience to become absorbed and to be transported into drama of the narrative she is creating. You find yourself staring relentlessly at
her photographs trying to seek a thin line between reality and fantasy. At first glance, the characters that inhabit these landscapes seem to be at mercy to their surroundings, but when you take the time to look more closely, we are asked to acknowledge a more complex relationship, as the characters are responded to by the landscapes. Their respective narratives seem to embody not only different situations but begin to project inner-reflections of the turbulence and joy of it’s inhabitants. We may of course seek to downplay it, or see it as reality, but they in fact initiate the ideas revolving around mindscapes. Often what is so dramatic about Kooi’s photographs is this reflected relationship between character and location. Let’s take Los Angeles Woestijn as an example, the mediated expectation of this image is reminiscent to the psychological human condition, standing emotionless, unaffected and
unresponsive, without thought, and this is the reflected by the barren desert, it’s vast emptiness and seemingly lack of life directly correlate to the lack of life these lifeless dolls seem to portray as they stand there allowing us to enter their own mindscapes. Kooi landscapes are mainly dutch and it could be the foreignness of these landscapes that force us to see aspects of fantasy, because they are unfamiliar to us. But with this and her experience in photographing both theatre and dance, the same familiarity and magic we feel from a performance is reflected in her work. It allows us to see landscapes as we would normally be able to see them, and think about them on a more personal level. Her images contrast awe and distress in a fantasy world where our environment reflects our image. Well, at least we think it to be fantasy.
CHEN CHIEH-JEN
Chen Chieh-Jen, Western Enterprises, 2010
CHEN CHIEH-JEN
...transfer their own experience into a photograph so that we might experience it ourselves.
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robably the hardest trick for any photographer to pull off is too transfer their own experience into a photograph so that we might experience it ourselves. The ‘narrative’; which our immersion to escape revolves around; of Chen Chieh-Jen’s series Empires Borders II is an attempt to re-enact and relate his experience of living in the marginalised region of Taoyuan, Taiwan during the Cold War/Martial War. He is not the only artist who was trying to re-enact the truths of such a difficult time, but his video and still image works grew in popularity because he was not only resisting the historical amnesia that surround us, but was imagining new representations through which history can be translated and presented a journey of how democracy can be achieved. Chieh-Jen’s body of work is not only direct story-telling of his own experience of history but uses visual art to articulate fleeting mentality, insights, bodily reminiscent states and difficult to convey atmospheres that centred around ideology and political topics in a neoliberal dominated era. By means of working together with local citizens as actors and hearing their experiences of his own story he was able interrogate the structures of power and show us a unique poetic representation of history. His works success spurred from the fact that because of this his work was connecting with people all over the world. We may come back to the idea that “documentary and the staged image can coincide to create still truthful depictions of reality” but still argue the validity of the truths within Cheih-Jen’s work but the truth is that there is no need to. It is listening to one person’s story at a time that truly reflects the factual experience of history, not what is written as a universally accessed dialogue, but the words of people involved. This is what Cheih Jen’s work is, it’s the words of his story, his experience, the “truth” of a history he was a part of. What is clear is that his work combines and conveys both universal issues and chronicles individual stories in promise to relate a elegant truth of a depiction of his people’s history. Chen Chieh-jen (b. 1960 in Taoyuan, Taiwan) currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan.
ANOEK STEKETEE
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Anoek Steketee, Dreamcity, Carin, Iraq
ANOEK STEKETEE
noek Steketee’s series Dreamcity documents amusement parks from all over the world. Indonesia, Uganda, the United States, Israel, Beirut, are a few examples of the countries that Steketee has visited. Just with her journey, and variety of countries she has visited she brings an example of unity between all our countries, by presenting that idea that we all, no matter where we come, know the meaning of fun, and enjoy it the same way. We all grow up wanting, going and enjoying the the wonders and thrills of amusement parks. It’s projects an idea that “we are all the same, no matter where we come from”. But it is not only our activities that correlate but also our mental desires. The desire to escape, everyone visits theme parks and it allows them to escape, it allows them to forget their troubles at home, forget everything that’s going wrong in the world and to just eat ice-cream, ride ferris wheels, laugh and to just enjoy themselves. It also influences us to remember that we all dream. Dreamcity is not only the name of an amusement park in Iraq; where “Kurds, Arabs and American soldiers, Christians and Muslims, Shiites and Sunnis; segments of the Iraqi population that were submerged in a deadly struggle outside the gates, amiably rubbed shoulders” (KOTHE: 2014); but it is also a metaphor for the worlds inside our minds, the worlds we escape too, the worlds we dream of. These idea’s are also immediately apparent in the way Steketee chooses to provide an outline for her work, it’s not only in what the images are of but also because every photograph identical in size, shape, and even in aesthetic. Although political,
ANOEK STEKETEE
Anoek Steketee, Untitled VIII from series Frontstage
Dreamcity was one of the selected works for the German Photo Book Award in 2012.
EETEKETS KEONA
sociological and cultural ideals are apparently different, each park has a universally recognisable uniform and appearance. It’s all relatably identical, it shows that we all share a similar idea of the kind of magic the amusement parks we all love to escape to share. Steketee employs an approach that comes to force us to acknowledge that we visit amusement parks fundamentally for the reason and purpose to escape. They are constructed worlds made to appease this desire and it is not only in the fun we find ourselves having. There lies apparent theme parks that revolve around certain themes in most countries. The location, origin and chosen themes of these theme parks offer an insight into the socio-political situation of the country in which it is built in. Behind the light-hearted laughter, and the innocent joy, lies our truthful desire to become something else, to take control and manipulate ourselves and the world around us to fit our desires and it is this that allows Steketee to present ways in which different realities can be depicted, and it is the uncanniness of the situations, and people she photographs that truly make her work into something so surreal and atmospheric. When you address Steketee’s series with these idea’s in mind it becomes a truly inspiring and heart-warming body of work. Work about unity, relatability and the fantasy worlds we all dream of escaping to, but also our dark desires to destroy the world in which we are in, and become a part of something else.
LISE SARFATI
Lise Sarfati E
characters story. All of this comes from the staging of her actors/ xhausted, placated, or perhaps both. Behind the actresses, it comes from the costume, the environment lens, through which the photographer directs so that she and the colours that are so reminiscent of 90s Hollywood, might catch a gentle unawareness. Her models become that it forces us to view her images as individual movies actresses of the Hollywood aesthetic. revolving around a similar theme. Still images that are The explanation lies within each image, and created for us to create a moving-image for ourselves. each image sets it’s own scene. Our viewpoints broaden What matters and what makes the work so compelling is out to a body of work that places us into “other lives� of the theatrical nature Lise Sarfati places within her work. discord and inner-turmoil. Her images seem so simple They are staged and yet so reminiscent of what we have yet project a strangeness of alienation that overpowers grew up seeing in our own lives, and in the lives of a box their superficial banality. Each model photographed is within our living rooms. portrayed with blank expressions, seemingly lost in the The most impressive feat of Lise Sarfati is that world of thought. Where the mind seems to be eating away her staged narratives do not take us into whole new at them leaving them lost in unhealthy bouts of negative worlds, cities and landscapes literally but take us into thought. the world of others metaphorically. The world we enter These characters present themselves as possibly are the characters themselves, we are centred on them, mentally, and socially abused individuals, trying to and only respond to them. We enter world a which we overcome their inner-conflictions, and the locations in will never have access to, the world of the individual, and which they are shot present us with the thought of escape. world where we become complacent and empathetic to They are all places you can go to be alone, and it leaves the person in-front of us. us to question what they are temporarily trying to escape to. As in all her deceptively banal photographs, they exude - Lise Sarfati works and lives between a need to narrate and a need to understand and create a France and New York
LISE SARFATI
Lise Sarfati, Eva Claire #2, 2008
FORMENTO & FORMENTO
FORMENTO & FORMENTO Formento & Formento, from Circumstance series, Date Unknown
FORMENTO & FORMENTO
Formento & Formento, from Circumstance series, Date Unknown
FORMENTO & FORMENTO
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rasing themselves, and manufacturing a new identity, becoming a new artists that melds them both. What people are unaware of is Formento & Formento are two artists working alongside each other, BJ and Richelle Formento, husband and wife, artist and artist, have become the fairly recognisable artist Formento & Formento. The Formento’s discover and are inspired by movies and documentaries they both take the time to watch and analyse so that they might take those a source to interpret their own stories and performances. Their cinematic narratives are places they have found that they believe represents the city which they are working in and also places the woman photographed have had their own stories take place, such as their first kiss. The
woman of Formento & Formento themselves represent the American Woman, they are reincarnations of David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, and all those famed directors that have brought in the heroism of the classic American Woman into cinema. BJ as a working photographer and Richelle as a art-director, and as these roles reverse throughout their work they are able to become one powerful source that creates truly enigmatic imagery. The Formento’s explore the possibility of fiction by using the history of film to create new images that we all recognise, create worlds and characters that give us all an opportunity to interpret, and create stunning imagery which we all come to desire for those very reasons. Their work is an inspiration for fine art artists. Michelle’s knowledges of fashion and the commercial world combined with BJ knowledge of fine art photography together find a middle grounding and has made them able to create a body of work that defeats the stereotype that “fine art never pays”, because in their case, when two fictionally opposing sides collide, fine art does pay.
ANNE HARDY
Anne Hardy, Detached, 2009
ANNE HARDY - The evidence of past actions and use allow us to imprint ourselves into the spaces, through what we do intentionally, or unintentional in our own spaces.
Anne Hardy, Untitled VI, 2005
ANNE HARDY
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Anne Hardy, Cipher, 2007
o we need another series of work portraying the eerie uncanniness of places left behind by it’s populants. Anne Hardy leaves her viewers with the knowledge that there is still much more to show with this subject matter, and she does so in an extremely engaging manner. Hardy’s body of work begins with the complete construction of the spaces she photographs inside her studio, and with this pretence of being completely built within her own personal space, void of onlookers, they becomes spaces that are only meant to be seen in an image. Her work is not only an art of photography, but also weaves through the art of sculpture, and is as much about the materials, objects and construction as it is about the photograph itself. Her spaces are not made to be seen as stage set’s; as we would initially imagine when we hear of room being constructed, which are seen more as an empty neutral space; but become containers of people. The image-taking almost becomes a conversation between the camera and the characters we would believe to populate the spaces being captured. But what Hardy wants is the person who is engaged in the spaces to be us, so that we do not look at them through somebody else’s actions, but interpret them as our own direct experiences with the spaces. We are not only looking at the photographs of these spaces, but are also stepping into these spaces and reacting to them accordingly.
It’s the spiritual presence of people that allows this work to be so engaging. The evidence of past actions and use allow us to imprint ourselves into the spaces, through what we do intentionally, or unintentional in our own spaces. It’s the combination of all the things we do in a space that go by unnoticed such as dropping something, tangling things together or leaving a mark on a wall that build on the character of ourselves. Hardy wants us to see ourselves when looking at her images. What we are asked to do is recognise aspects our own personal character.
ANNA SKLADMANN
Anna Skladmann, from series Little Adults, 2008-10
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uring 2008-2010, Anna Skladmann worked on a body of work that took the shape of presenting the fantasy of the upper-classes. A lot of other artists have depicted upper-class or “rich” lifestyles but what Skladmann does is begin to question the fantasy of being rich, and in doing so, shows us that that idea of what we all have of how it is to be rich, is in a lot of cases true. There isn’t a fantasy about it, the lifestyles of “rich”, which they themselves try to denounce, is actually quite honest. Of course, some people would express opinions of how obvious, or false this may sound, but Skladmann has achieved a great piece of work through the characters she has chosen as her
subjects. What she has done is gained access into the homes and properties of elite Russian families and photographed their children within these spaces. The idea for this series stemmed from Skladmann’s first impression of Russia whilst she attended a New-Year Masquerade Ball, and was taken back by the children who were sat at separate tables, looking and behaving like grown-ups. The past, present and coming future of Russian history has always been the same, children brought up by such families are forcibly matured earlier than that of many other classes or cultures, and it is that idea that initially makes her body of work titled “Little Adults” so alarming. She photographs these little people that are on top of the hierarchy,
dressed in maturely expensive outfits posing with an essence of vulnerability but also with expressions of sadness. These children know they are in control of the environments around them, and yet despite of the glamorous splendour of Skladmann aesthetic the children look strangely melancholic, even when putting on a performance of characters other than themselves. It just goes to show that our fantasies of the splendour of a rich lifestyle is just as true of the loneliness and melancholy it can bring, especially to early adults. Skladmann’s work is aesthetically stunning and awe inspiring, but at the same time maintains a controversial representation that is sure to stir a mixture of different questions and reactions between a lot of people.
ANNA SKLADMANN
Anna Skladmann, Lisa Inside Her Father’s Antique Store, 2010
RESEARCH JOURNAL
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personal.
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PARADOX
THE OTHER SELF ANOTHER ME OUT THERE, LIVING THE EXACT SAME LIFE, BUT HAD M A D E C O M P L E T E LY OPPOSING DECISIONS
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t’s almost obvious there is something paradoxical about photography. For a practitioner who creatively approaches this medium, it can be a never-ending search for a meaning in their lives, a technique that aids them in understanding themselves and their lives by attempting to hold their identity whilst at the same instance constructing it (BADGER: 2014). This is where the initial ideas for this project began, the photographer attempted to project his inner world of today and of his past, to reflect narratives that ask you to question the universal mental transitions of growing up. Not only is photography paradoxical but so is this series of work in it’s subject matter and it’s aesthetic, by creating a mirror image that reflected one side to the other, but with significant differences to each. Both boys are the same boy and you are asked to remember your feelings of isolation growing up as a child, when you were left feeling like you were
only person you could talk to and play with. We all share moments like these in our childhoods, and the photographer ask you to remember. At the same time the series looks at the paradoxical effect he used to think about when growing up, about there being another you out there, living the exact same life, but who had made completely opposing decisions to ones you had throughout your life, and how no matter which decisions you made, if you could still believe he would be in the same position, feeling the same way you did sometimes; no matter how different you may be. This series is meant to represent that paradox effect and say that if you can find your other self, who had lead their life completely different than you and still imagine them in the same predicament, then it’s likely that predicament could be spread globally, and that you are only 1 in 1,000,000 feeling that way. The series meant to say “we are not alone”; in it’s narrative structure; so find and interact. The main quarrels with the above image is the busyness in the background and the lighting.
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SPACE
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begin with an admission. One of the most interesting prospects of photography that we universally admire aesthetically and theoretically is banality and the empty space. I find it so fascinating that people awe over the photograph that broadcasts empty space, maybe it’s the simpleness of them, maybe it’s the feeling that they can go on forever, or maybe it’s the idea that within this empty space anything can happen or everything can stay still and hang in a millisecond of calm empty time. The other aspect of the banality of empty space is the surrealality of it, that it can sometimes seem so calm, so quiet and so vacant that it becomes almost fantasy. I feelings are similar for this image, through it’s spacial aberration and it’s distant opposing factors of light and dark it becomes simple and yet endearing. The fields are lit in such a way that we would not see without the ability to catch a millisecond in time, and the darkness is not a darkness we recognise as real, as outdoors there is always moonlight showering us. These two factors make this image seem uncanny and at the same time so distinctly quiet. The series was planned to be printed large-scale as to allow viewers to enter a world of stillness and of no sound, somewhere dark and eerily peaceful for them to escape the chaos of actual life. It would step out of the narrative and look closely at creating a world of one story. The experience of a viewer entering a world and finding peace and tranquility in it for just a few moments. This series was not continued at this moment, as it steps out of the photographers general interests in the narrative, but is something that may be came back to. He achieved what he was aiming for, but to get the ideas across that he has been working with it is believed it would take a much more varied series of images to make that experience clear to a viewer.
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his body of work aims to reflect and contradict the commercialised way in which we see ourselves and people of the individually interested gender. Drawing inspiration from the analysis of how we view ourselves from a confidence perspective to how we view others and see them as confident and attractive. Still keeping the block background colours, that are recognisable in fashion and advertising, models are asked to come in wearing as little or as much as they want, whatever they would feel the most confident or sexy in to members of the opposing/same gender. Before leaving the room for a few minutes they are then
asked to think about and practice in a mirror what pose they believe they look the best in and also the framing they think complements them the best, so head-shot, mid-shit, full-shot etc. By doing this what begins being questioned are the ideals of what we are meant to see as sexy. What we find confident or sexy in ourselves is completely different to the level of how we expect someone else to follow suit to appease their own desires. It’s about how superficial or of the self-pity we feel when we look at other people who we believe tick all the commercial boxes of attractiveness. After each model is photographed they are asked what they believe make a sexy, confident and
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attractive individual of their gender, in terms of body type, clothing, stance and looks. I believe that how they answered would contradict how they were when they were photographed. Even the ones who did fit the commercial stereotype, would still promote their own sexiness differently. It’s a chance for people to take notice of their own view of sexuality, not just the commercial view that has been engrained into them, but to concentrate on their own personal idea of what they believe to be attractive. I think that a lot of people do not take notice of their own ideals of attractiveness, confidence, and sexiness, and instead are always clouded by the stereotypical ideas of this is how it’s meant to be.
The work wants viewers to look at the work and also at themselves and see that actually they do follow a criteria of their own views of attractiveness, and see themselves in a brighter light, without compare to the commercial representation. This series started as a break to think and recuperate, and will be came back to and become a finished series. But as of know, the photographer is concerned on the narratable area of photography, so after allowing himself to just photograph something new that came into mind on the day, it’s allowing him to relax and ease back into what he was aiming to achieve for the current project.
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here is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. (CAGE: 1984)� There is nothing more enjoyable then spending time in a silent, empty space, unconfined by the walls of your own home and yet still not have to constantly think about how you are around the people around you. This series began as an idea to photograph the locations in which my models would take centre stage, but became a piece solely about silence and vacant space. Whilst photographing this series and looking back on the images the thoughts that kept coming into mind, is what John Cage seemed to be addressing in his quote. No matter how hard we try to capture silence within a photograph the fact that we respond so instinctively and search for meaning or narrative within vacant photographs, creates noise. We see vacant space as always having hidden meanings or understandings behind it, and very rarely as a photographic form see it as silent. That is what this image was geared towards achieving, capturing a free space that attempted to rid idea’s and readings and when viewed would only bring silence to the place photographed and only silence in the mind of the viewer.
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T THE HUMANITY OF OBJECTS
here has been a revolution in photography over the years, where emerging photographers have photographed and reflected on the humanity of objects. Images first appear to be of an object or of a wider space, and then we slowly start to understand the object’s relationship to it’s environment. A fundamental study that is often used is abandonment and loneliness. Looking at layering objects with the same emotional responses as we would feel when observing ourselves in a photograph. This new way of seeing objects has become quite and distinct and cultural recognisable approach to a photographic practice for a good while now. The artists look at the narrative in a way to tell the stories of objects as we would people. They ask us to question how these objects got to where they are, why they were left behind and who left them behind. Common questions that come up when we are looking at people photographed to convey abandonment and loneliness themselves.
V This body of work uses that narrative structure through the uses and effects of space and lighting. When something small is captured, and overpowered by a large environment it becomes hard to notice and also gradually becomes insignificant and forgotten. Then when a large amount of darkness is included in the image it inspired a dark and negative response to how the narrative is meant to be read. Each object is photographed at a window where light is pouring in, and yet each object is still in the dark. Each object is significantly smaller than it’s surroundings and so each object becomes hard to notice. But fundamentally each photograph presents an eerie silence. You don’t imagine anything going on around these photographs, you imagine them hanging in silent limbo. I think it’s the silence that the scale imitates that fundamentally forces that lonely aesthetic. By presenting them each looking out of windows hoping for someone to comes, it aids in the imagination of attempting to humanise inanimate objects.
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Finding My Aesthetic
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n terms of the narrative the aspects that are approached photographically that inspire me the most are the aspects that revolve around everyday life but combine unseen moments, and quite uncanny situations. Naturally photographers such as Hannah Starkey, Gregory Crewdson and Tor Simen Ulstein are a few of my favourite practitioners working in the field of photography today. The subjects in their photographs all revolve characters living everyday lives, the difference being that Starkey’s work is very real, it all seems normal. When as when you enter Crewdson and Ulstein work you see the everyday situations become more surreal as they concentrate on presenting small unseen neighbourhoods and their inhabitants. This is a vast, complex and broad area to study, though once you find your own definitions of the kind of narratives you want to approach you can start to narrow a few fields down. This is where all my work has been leading up to beginning and my narrative pieces are starting with the result of creating the idea of a small section of society and photographing uncanny individuals in everyday situations which are either too extravagant or too private for it to be something that we actually see everyday. The material for this shot specifically concentrated on the private aspect, where the character is captured in a deep negative thought-process. What makes it so effective, is the surrealality of the lighting, it add’s that cinematic element, to make the situation seem fictional. The photographic process, lighting in particular, was a big area I hadn’t been able to work out yet. Working solely with flash for the past few years, believing that it was the best source of lighting to achieve the cinematic aesthetic I was after, was a mistake, as I have always achieved photographs that hadn’t met my demands. I finally submitted and attempted using continuous lighting as an experiment, and it turns out it was the lighting I was looking for all along. Using strong continuous light forces that aesthetic that makes an image or moving-image look cinematic, and now I know where I have been going wrong, I can start to achieve the sort of images I have been after all along. The next step in terms of my practice now, is to experiment with the continuous light I have available and to re-evaluate work I have looked at in the past, now I know what equipment is required to achieve my final result.
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o say that the chair being used as a indicator of past life or loneliness is a practice popular by a lot of photographers, is quite an understatement - and is gradually abating as time goes on. Never mind the aesthetic it achieves, but you start to realise how much something is approached when a world-wide understanding starts to become one single idea. World-wide people get the same responses from this subject matter, and it’s a simple approach to achieving said response if that is what you are after. After learning the correct lighting methods I had needed for the imagery I was hoping to create, I set out to photograph this very thing, the chair as a starting point to experiment with. This series would start out as an exploration of the underground passages under Falmouth, Cornwall. But what it would slowly become is a piece about Falmouth specifically. Falmouth was originally much lower than it is now but had to built upon to accommodate the rise of the sea levels. So under a lot of the buildings surrounding the place are old warehouses that used to be actual shops and old streets that used to be the high-street. What this series aimed to do was to document this abandoned space, now forgotten, and a useful way of approaching this was to add the question of how long a chair may have been sitting somewhere, how long has it been waiting, and who left it. Secondly, it was to capture small fragments of items or facilities that looked like they made to be and were once used very often, but now are hanging in silence with no human interaction. What once was outside is now underground, under Falmouth hides a forgotten place, a quiet place, an eerie place, a place that was once full of life.
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n the 8th installment of experimental stage this series was created for an opportunity for me to experiment more with the continuous lighting equipment we had available. Here I began experimenting with both Dedo light and Redhead light kits. It was a chance for me to understand exactly which lights would work best for me now and in the future, and if the combination of the two would be more effective than just the one. Here I was experimented with between 0-300W and a fixed 800W lights. Through these images, shot to project a narrative to read into, we reflect on the tones and costume of the 90s. Something displeases us, but makes us want to look at the work, the colours are flat and unwelcoming, the character isn’t someone to be admirable towards. It all seems too distasteful and it is these reasons that make them slightly endearing. They have there own aesthetic. Similar too a representation of everyday working life, I wanted to stage small narratives that conveyed this ideal, but in quite unnatural situations. Firstly. I wanted each image to be
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SIMON
24 YEARS OLD
photographed in this box scenario. A cubicle is the same, but each one homes 1991 small box room, a set you might say, a completely new person, with a new to create narratives that would co-exist representations of themselves and work. together. There would be different In the end I hope to have a characters and different scenario’s in each space series of images that did little more than entertain but they would all link to the same room. Similar a viewer to watch people in unsettling and quirky to an actual office building where everyones scenarios, something to enjoy and admire.
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lounge, enjoying her source of entertainment, but as I started shooting, I moved and placed objects in to make it seem more ow it’s a question of how to start a continuous series unfamiliar. The location was the major aspect of this shot, as it of work. I’ve spent my time exploring different ideas and was shot in an underground store-room. imagery, waiting for something click that I actually want to This didn’t achieve what I was aiming for entirely continue with. The truth is I’ve enjoyed everything that I though because of how dark the images came out. The location have been created but nothing has clicked yet. Nothing has was a major factor and because of how dark the images are, presented me with the idea that “this is what I want to do”. the location seems unimportant, because it is indistinguishable, This series is slowly beginning to get there. it has lost the character I hoped it would have, and it did have What I wanted to create was a series that looked when I was there shooting. at a fictional town where everyday situations were placed Working like this was getting me closer to how I in uncanny settings or scenarios. As to say “Welcome wanted to approach a series of work though. Working with to the village of so-and-so, where you will find unique costume, props and personally placed sets. I am nearing the characters living quite unique lifestyles. For example this goal I am hoping to achieve but I think there may be a different image was originally sketched as a woman sitting in her aesthetic I should be going for.
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05/05/2014 Photographs by Jahnico Walcott-Park from his ‘Watching people Watching’ series. Focuses on exploring the aspect of ourselves that enjoys pervading into other peoples lives, and give us the oppurtunity to watch
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o you enjoy pervading other people’s lives? Do you enjoy the safeness and security of watching people from a distance…? The truth is, we all do. However it’s also true to say that for a lot of us we do not actually realise just how much we do actually spectate. May it be your neighbours or a couple on the street, we can’t help but to watch when a situation is in our viewpoint. We even try to look away, but we have to force ourselves because we know we wants to watch. What you have got with the series of work ‘Watching People Watching’ is an opportunity to reflect and think about how often you do actually watch people’s lives from a safe distance, and how gratifying and entertaining that can be. This project focuses on woman as they are believed to be the biggest non-sexual voyeurs of us all. When we imagine the nosyneighbour or the concept of gossip we imagine it all revolving around the woman of the house. This series of work captures woman who have had there attention caught by something happening in the distance, and are now participating in the watching activity. But the fundamentals of this series of work comes into fruition when it is displayed on a wall. What the photographer has done is print these individual photographs no larger than a thumbnail. So, already it becomes something that draws you in, and by doing this the artist hopes to inflict that first instinct of something catching your eye and your wanting to see/watch what it is. Lying beside each image is a small lupe which then allows you to magnify the image and to see more clearly what it is you are trying to watch. You are then subjected to quite recognisable images of people watching, and this is where you are caught participating in the art of watching. The idea is too no longer think about what we watch or what they might be watching, but to realise that at that moment you are watching someone watching, and will possibly see yourself reflected right back at you.
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You are caught participating in the art of watching
“A tangled forest and the feeling of hidden eyes watching.” James Christensen ‘Voyage of the Basset’ 1996
exwhyzine. 2014