BRISTOL THROUGH FILM JOSEPH KOZAK
BRISTOL THROUGH FILM
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BRISTOL THROUGH FILM JOSEPH KOZAK 4
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UNSEEN & UNKNOWN JOSEPH KOZAK
Bristol is a city in the South West of England with a population of approximately 450,000. Bristol is well known for it’s cultural diversity and ever increasing opportunities within the creative industry. It is a bustling place to live with a lot to offer to it’s tourists and people living here. 6
This book showcases some of the unseen and unknown parts of Bristol that may often go over looked or are not known by the public. A selection of photos taken using a 35mm film camera have been included along with facts about the area and where they can be found. This has been a fairly short project with a quick turn around. However I intend to develop this project further and experiment with film camera and photography in general.
hidden places, well known areas that are no longer in popular use and places of importance to Bristol.
The subjects that are covered in this book are places of neglect, activism 6
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BRISTOL THROUGH FILM
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REVEAL
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This piece of work created by Bristol based and world renowned street Artist, Banksy, entitled ‘The sniper and the child’ was painted approximately four years ago. It is situated in Upper Maudlin Street opposite the Bristol Children’s Hospital. Unfortunately this year on October 4th it was painted over with thick black paint by apparent rival graffiti artists, Robbo which is part of an ongoing fued between the two. It is not known whether it can be restored and will for now remain an eye sore to the street. This is not the first time a Banksy piece has been covered as in 2009 his famous mural of a naked man hanging out of a window at the bottom of Park Street was vandalised with a paintball gun and in 2011 a piece depicting a Gorilla in Eastville was mistakingly painted over by a shop owner.
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CRYSTAL CLEAR
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The completely mirrored sphere situated in the centre of Bristol is part of the public science and technology education and exploration centre known as @Bristol. The mirrored sphere contains a planetarium which offers a 360 ° cinema experience showing space and nature films as part of the science centre, Explore@Bristol. The centre opened in the year 2000 and cost approximately £88m to create with the help of funding by the National Lottery, Bristol City Council and also Nestle. The initial three centres within @Bristol were; Explore, Wildwalk and the IMAX, however in 2007 due to funding issues only the Explore was to remain open to the public which resulted in 45 redundencies. In 2009 the centre was offered a lifeline by the Blue Reef Aquarium which has converted the Wildwalk into an Aquarium and also shows films in the IMAX cinema centre.
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THINLY CUT
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This is the Bristol Royal Infirmary(BRI) situated in Upper Maudlin Street directly below the Children’s Hospital. The building was first acquired by the NHS in 1948 and it’s facilities were extended greatly in the 1960s and the addition of the Oncology Centre was opened in 1971. The building appears as an eye sore when situated against the more newly built Childrens Hospital due to it’s grey exterior and lack of windows making it seem a somewhat unfriendly building. During the recession, the BRI, along with many other public services faced harsh cuts which resulted in loss of jobs and also a reduction in levels of funding. However it has continued to focus strongly on being a teaching hospital, paving the way for new nurses and doctors to develop their skills.
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MORE TROUBLE THAN IT’S WORTH 22
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An Esso petrol station on Park Row. Petrol prices have been an ever increasing issue within Bristol with many motorists feeling the strain on being able to afford to run their cars. Prices did fall slightly in August 2011 to an average of 137p per litre which is still much too high for many people. The positive that has come from this issue is that more people are now riding bikes which has grown in popularity in the recent years. This has allowed for Bristol to be named England’s first cycling city, with a strong focus on creating cycle paths, cycle lanes and more places for cyclists to leave their bikes safely when not in use. With this new title, Bristol schools have already started introducing cycling lessons to help encourage young people to take on cycling as a method of transport rather than cars.
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SCRAPE
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Stokes Croft is an area in Bristol well known for it’s culturual diversity and non-conformist attitude by some of it’s residents. Many of the stores in the area are independent local shops run by the local community which includes record stores, bakeries, printers and other businesses. Walking through Stokes Croft it is impossible not to notice the influence of street art with graffiti around every corner; commissioned or not. In 2011 Stokes Croft made national news as protestors rioted against the opening of a new Tesco store in Cheltenham Road. It began as a peaceful protest but due to the combination of squatters being removed and the large numbers of police, it inevitably turned violent with damage being caused to the shop front and looting. Bristol bases street artist, Banksy then designed a limited run of prints depicting a tesco bottle being used as a petrol bomb, selling for £5 in support of the protests.
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URGENCY
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Recently there has been an increasing problem and concern with young people going out on a night out and then falling into the water. The Missing Persons Bureau have announced the launch of a campaign to highlight this issue. Alongside the waterfront are several bars and a lo of young people, especially men forget about the dangers of the water and how deadly it can be when you are unaware of your surroundings or what you are doing. Hopefully this campaign and increasing understanding of the issue will result in this stopping.
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SIMILAR
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This is an NCP car park which is situated in Frogmore Street next to the 02 academy and the Colston Hall. Although a fairly weathered building from the outside, inside it has been decorated with street art from local community groups from the surrounding area. A lot of the community projects that have come to be designing this lifeless building have been from neglected or troubled backgrounds and by offering them this opporunity has given them a sense of accomplishment. In 2009 the NCP changes it’s policy in regards to the use of the lift; people would often use the lift in the NCP as a way of getting from the bottom of Park Street to the top. The lift is now only accessible if you have a parking ticket from the car park, therefore saving money and reducing congestion in the lifts.
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COMFORTABLE
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Bristol, like many other cities have become completely congested with the amount of cars on the road, including being parked. Although there are clear signs saying no parking or for a limited time, a lot of people have begun abusing this and have started parking where you are not allowed to. This can be a big problem for pedestrians as they will often have to look or walk between cars in order to get to other sides of the road. Campaigners and parking attendants are currently working together to try and tackle this issue and address the dangers that come with parking illegally or on the road.
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KEEP FOR ONESELF
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The Bristol Cathedral based in College Green in the centre of town has been a tourist attraction and place of peace for many years and it continues to stand as one of Bristol’s key landmarks. The Cathedral relies primarily on charity funding and donations from the public as it costs £2 per minute to keep it open. The Cathedral welcomes any visitors with access to almost every room in the entire building; including the prayer room. It also offers services every week and also works closely with schools and other groups including Scouts and Guides with workshops being run by volunteers.
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SOMETHING WORTH FIGHTING FOR 46
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The University of Bristol is situated at the top of Park Street next to Bristol Museum. It is a magnificent piece of architecture which stands out distinctively in it’s location. It has been in existence since 1876 and recieved it’s Royal Charter in 1909. It has gained a global reputation as one of the United Kingdoms best Universities and has been within the top ten in University Rankings in the last twenty years. The University has a very high level of standards with the average applicant having four A’s at A Level and the ratio of applicants per course being an average of 14 per place and in the more popular courses such as Law having 40 applicants per place available. The building was cleaned and restored to a near new aesthetic in 2008 which has allowed it to stand out as one of Bristol finest pieces of architecture to date.
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TAKE CARE OF 50
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The Bristol Royal Hospital for Children opened in 2001 and has been a signifcant feature of Bristol due to it’s brightly coloured hoops sculpture situated outside of it. The hospital was opened as a partner to the BRI as a place designed specifically for young people. The hospital includes an A&E department and specialist transplant sector and it is currently in the process of increasing the department further. The main focus of the build was to ensure it was child friendly, with a strong focus on brigh colours and artwork featuring in all of the rooms of the building. With help from the Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal over £5million was raised to increase the amount of state of the art equipment, media, comfort for patients and visitors and also family accomodation services for patients who require family to spend considerable time with them.
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SILENT 54
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Another famous and well known attraction in Bristol is the Harbour and the Waterfront. Due to the increase in size of cargo ships, the harbour is no longer used for it’s original purpose. It is now essentially a tourist attraction which includes museums; most recently the MSHED museum, exhibitions, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. It is also home to the Arnolfini art gallery and the @Bristol science exhibition. Recently there have been a large number of fashionable apartments being built along the harbourside showing the ever increasing popularity of the area. Some historic boats have also been preserved and used as tourist attractions all year round and most notably in the yearly harbour festival. These includes Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Britain and an exact replica of the Matthew. The harbour is a bustling area with a peaceful aesthetic and a lively nightlife.
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DESCEND
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BELONGING TO A PARTICULAR AREA 62
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In 2011, Nelson Street was turned into Europe’s biggest piece of street art with the launch of ‘See No Evil’ which invited street artists from all over the world to take part in and cotribute their art to creating a huge piece of artwork open to the entire public. The idea was to create another tourist attraction of Bristol off of the success of Banksy’s take over of the Bristol Museum. The idea was a huge success and filled an entire weekend with street art of all different varieties with many people from all over the UK visiting the street in Bristol to witness and take part in this live gallery. The entire concept was helped by funding from the Bristol City Council and some of the artists involved included Inkie, Cheo and people from Aardman.
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BRISTOL THROUGH FILM
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OVERVIEW
This project began as a task of taking 50 photographs relating to a list of 50 words and phrases. The other limitation to this process was the rule of taking the photos with a 35mm film camera; something I have never used before. The restriction of using a film camera ensured I focused more on the photograph I was taking and to make sure that the image was ideal before shooting. With a film camera a good photo relies on the composition and story behind it more than the quality that you always get with a digital camera.
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I found this a challenging task as it took me out of my comfort zone. I would never call myself a photographer and I am still learning. Due to this rrestriction I have been able to appreciate the work that photographers do and just how difficult it can be to get that perfect shot. With a digital camera you can find yourself taking hundreds of photos and selecting just one but with a film camera it is that one photograph you take that comes out better than you expected that really stands out. 67
For this book I have chosen to add a further restriction to this brief and limit the photos used to ones of relevance to Bristol specifically. Whether that be through architecture, design, activism or things that have gone unheard of or are unknown to a lot of people that may be living in the city. Bristol is an amazing city, with a real sense of community and culture and having lived in Bristol since birth, I have a real connection with the designing of this book and I hope that this has come across in the final output. The rest of the photographs can be found on my website: www.joe-kozak.com, along with the photographs are directions to where you will be able to find these areas and visist them yourselves. 68
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BRISTOL THROUGH FILM JOSEPH KOZAK 35mm
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