QUOTE UNQUOTE
Amelia Stewart 0 4 - 0 7 Annabel Fitzsimons 0 8 - 1 1 Clรกr Tillekens 1 2 - 1 5 Daniel Dale 1 6 - 1 9 Elliott Cole 2 0 - 2 3 Fra Beecher 2 4 - 2 7 Ilaria Trees Meridio 2 8 - 3 1 Josh Adam Jones 3 2 - 3 5 Joseph Horton 3 6 - 3 9 Krerkburin Kerngburi 4 0 - 4 3 Laura Lamb Mallet 4 4 - 4 7 Marcus Thurman 4 8 - 5 1 Michael Swann 5 2 - 5 5 Norberto Fernรกndez Soriano Phillipa Klaiber 6 0 - 6 3 Will Ruff 6 4 - 6 7
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AMELIA STEWART
The First Thing You Did Was Breathe Influenced by a surge of heightened senses in pregnancy and early motherhood, Amelia created The First Thing You Did Was Breathe. The photographs are taken from the perspective of seeing the world anew and aim to recreate the experience of these amplified senses, which were felt most in natural settings. During this transition into parenthood, a shifted sense of time developed, generating a daze that was permeated by resurfacing detail. As a result, the work flows between abstracted observations and moments of clarity. While navigating through this juxtaposing juncture, Amelia steers between feeling estranged from her outdoor surroundings and yet conversant with them.
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Amelia Stewart is an image maker who works across a variety of mediums to create photographic outcomes. Her projects interrogate the intersection between surface reality and inner experience. Using photography’s modality to form productive relations, Amelia looks at the interplay between our surroundings and selves. Through recording observations with her camera and constructing photographs, she explores the connections between our imagined, embodied, created and natural environments. Amelia is a practicing photographer, and lecturer of Photography and Multidisciplinary Art. Impelled by the experience of having her first child, she is currently forming a social enterprise to share her enthusiasm for the advantages of Photography, creative thinking and being outdoors. ameliastewart.co.uk @ameliagstewart
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ANNABEL FITZSIMONS At The Median
The median is the plane which divides two things, itself occupying a liminal space between. In this project I locate my childhood memories in the contexts in which they occurred, both within my home life and in the surrounding area, in order to create allegorical representations of my lived experiences. Through doing so, I come to occupy a liminal space between past and present, allowing me to mediate between the two. Set in the New Forest where I grew up, these meditative pictures unearth a personal journey, locating memories in physical space. These reminiscences span from my family home to familiar surrounding environments, and subsequently feature both new memories formed during trips home to make the work and old memories re-experienced in a new context. Seeking to capture a different way of seeing, my visual language is informed by the sensory and visual facets of my life with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In my endeavour to express the indescribable aspects of my lived experience, I reflect on the way in which my mental health alters my perception, imparting both darkness and light to my worldview.
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Annabel Fitzsimons is a British photographer, currently based in Bristol, primarily making work that explores indescribable aspects of the human experience with dream-like imagery. A background in the social sciences informed her practice and allowed her to engage with photography through a sociological and psychological lens. She completed her BSc in Social Policy at the University of Bristol, and her MA in Photography at UWE Bristol. Recently, she was shortlisted for the BarTur Photo Award 2020. www.annabelfitzsimons.com @annabelfitzsimons
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CLÁR TILLEKENS Overseas
In 1989 my Irish parents moved to the United States seeking better opportunities—in 2015 I applied for an Irish passport and moved to Europe with the same intentions. Taking on an additional nationality and returning to the continent that my family emigrated from has been a complex experience. Being a first-generation American and living abroad as a newly designated Irish national has led me to examine how Irish culture is altered and maintained through migration. Overseas is an exploration of diasporic Irish culture through an intergenerational lens—featuring my ancestral home in rural Leitrim, my parents’ surroundings in New York, and my current life in multiple European cities. The series captures shifts in lifestyles prompted by immigration and time, while celebrating the hybridity that comes with being multilocal across several countries.
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Clár Tillekens (New York City, 1993) is an AmericanIrish photographer. She has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Master of Arts in Photography from the University of the West of England Bristol. Now living in Europe as the daughter of Irish immigrants, her work focuses on transnationalism, first-generation identity, and plural citizenship. Prompted by her own experiences, Tillekens examines how national identities are becoming increasingly hyphenated through globalism. And with three-percent of the world’s population living outside of their country of origin, she explores the varying layers of immigration. clartillekens.com @clarmc 15
DANIEL DALE
A Field Guide to Happiness A Field Guide to Happiness, is an ongoing search for something we all agree exists but no one can prove - happiness. Meticulously collected, these colour photographs are presented as evidence of intentional and unintentional everyday actions that, both singularly and as a sum of their parts, evokes something close to a smile. The abstract fascination with the ‘ordinary’, surrounds us and unfolds into an offbeat and ostensive questioning that repeatedly asks, ‘Is this an example of happiness?’ ‘Happiness’ is a project that points and questions; the work begins with our very understanding of the word ‘happy’ and how we may use it in its varying contexts every day. The work walks a fine line of absurdity and dry humour, with a light mist of cynicism, and eventually plays the very nature of the word against itself. Within a climate of shifting politics, environmental fragility, heightened consumerism, and our current inability to move freely, it is best reminded that an acute observation on our world, as well as our immediate surroundings, may impact us in positive ways.
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Daniel Dale is an artist and publisher inspired by ’Nonsense’ who is graduating with an MA in Photography from the University of the West of England. His work strikes a balance between sensible meaning and no meaning at all as he carefully scrutinises his everyday surroundings. Trying to find answers to questions that haven’t been asked yet, recurring motifs of colour, form and content stretch the imagination and pull together seemingly straightforward threads into abstract knots, asking the spectator to become a participant. Currently working on an ongoing project about ‘Happiness’, Dale has also created ’Nonsense Books’, a small self-publishing venture that presents his own work, as well as others who work along similar lines. www.danieldale.co.uk @danofthedale 19
ELLIOTT COLE
A Hull to Hold the Waves at Bay A Hull To Hold The Waves At Bay considers the subject of mental health and how we manage it. It is a journey of self-exploration that contemplates our interaction with our surroundings and how we reduce the impact of our symptoms. Inevitably my own experiences are intertwined amongst the stories of the subjects. The time spent making the photographs allows for conversation and informs a more collaborative approach. The series presents a culmination of the momentary calm, the warmth and the fleeting clarity afforded by these coping strategies juxtaposed with the difficulties and frustrations encountered along the way.
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Elliott Cole (b.1985) is a photographer based in the United Kingdom working on documentary-based and research-led projects that focus on social and environmental issues. His recent work has centred around subject matters including mental health and our relationship with the natural world, marginalised communities and the environment. As well as pursuing his own self-initiated projects, he works both editorially and commercially – his work has been published in publications such as The Guardian, Boneshaker and Huck, and commercial clients include KPMG and Rolls Royce. He received a BA in Photography from Nottingham Trent University in 2009, and is currently pursuing an MA in Photography at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). www.elliottcole.co.uk @elliottcolephoto 23
FRA BEECHER Body of Work
Body of Work explores the physical role of the female life model. There are six chapters to the project Seated, Sustained, Object, Standing, Dynamic and Subject. Each image represents a life model who, seated or standing, has held a pose. The work challenges the misconception that female models are passive objects, by offering an alternative perspective on the experience of the models themselves. In a life class, bodies are treated as objects. By documenting the tools used by life models, including their own bodies, the physicality of the role can be observed. The photographs speak of the disciplined nature, and physical discomfort, of posing. The act of looking is practiced through life drawing. These works explore the often unseen aspects of life modelling; they show the body at work, nudity is the uniform, not the subject.
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Fra Beecher [b. 1986] is a life model and photographic artist. She looks and is looked at. Fra models for amateur and professional artists, at art schools, colleges and for community groups. She is also a co-founder of United Models - a Bristol based life model collective. Fra studied BA Photographic Art at the University of Wales, Newport and taught Photography at Stroud School of Art. Her current work brings together both of her creative practices - modeling and image making. www.frabeecher.co.uk @fra_beecher 27
ILARIA TREES MERIDIO Sine and Ouakam
SINE: Creating abstract visions from details of the urban environment; Sine is a collection of compositions out of place and time. By balancing objects and structures into ordered fragments, the work highlights the contrasts between elements that can be found in areas that are seldom witnessed. With no reference to a specific geographical place, the man-made environment is reduced to a series of lines and geometries that seek for harmony among the chaos, creating an intimate interpretation of how space can be perceived. OUAKAM: ‘Ouakam’ was once part of an ancient Lebou village; it has now been enveloped by the city of Dakar and has transformed into a residential suburb. This work visually investigates the complexity of urban development and gentrification of the area - by capturing the beauty of its contrasts reflected in the different variety of textures, colors and structures within the architecture.
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Ilaria Trees Meridio is a visual artist and photographer currently based in Bristol (UK). She received a BA in Decoration from the Venice Fine Arts Academy (IT) and has recently completed an MA in Photography at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). Focusing on the mundane within the urban environment, her work investigates the perception of space, abstraction and composition through lines and shapes. As she explains, “If I squint my eyes, depth gets nullified - it is this flatness and the forms originated what interests me.” For Ilaria, the solitary act of walking is fundamental to her image making process; Through this impulsive meditative act, she investigates her fascinations while pushing the boundaries of her relationship with the surroundings and capturing its parallax. “When I lose myself in space, I find myself in time.” ilariatreesmeridio.com @ilaria.trees 31
Josh Adam Jones
Sometimes a Silence Will Cut Through Sounds Last year, my paternal Grandfather passed away. It was the first personal experience of death and the grief that followed. I needed to process this life event somehow, and making this work acted as a form of therapy, helping to alleviate ongoing issues too; our family has a history of mental health problems that have come to the surface in various ways over the years. I have watched first-hand the ways in which it has affected my own Father. ‘Mental illness’ carries the connotation that it can be cured, but I think this to be slightly inaccurate. Rather, it is something that can be helped, made more bearable and easier to manage, but it never really goes away. This work is a meditative response to personal struggles of the day-to-day and is a way of therapeutically dealing with problems which usually remain undisclosed. It’s a way of visually and physically making sense of my own inner turmoil, whilst also hoping that others can relate.
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Josh Adam Jones is British photographer whose work often centres around stories of misrepresented places and the people who live there. From ageing Irish populations in British towns and cities to the expatriate communities of Oman, Josh hopes to facilitate conversations about identity, home and interculturalism through his work. He completed a BA (First Class Hons) in Photography in 2018 and is graduating with an MA in Photography at UWE Bristol in 2020. He has been commissioned by Ffotogallery (Cardiff) and British Council for The Place I Call Home: an international project and travelling exhibition. His work has been displayed at Stal Gallery (Muscat), Copeland Gallery (London), Summerhall (Edinburgh) and featured in publications such as The British Journal of Photography, It’s Nice That and Harper’s Bazaar Arabia. Most recently, he worked with Lucasfilm and British Journal of Photography to photograph in Dubai as part of a global editorial campaign: Star Wars Families. Josh is represented by Lisa Pritchard Agency (LPA Futures). joshadamjones.co.uk @joshadamjonesphoto 35
Joseph Horton Terrain Vague
Focusing on a semi rural and post industrial area of the UK this project was created with the intention of exploring the multifaceted identity of the British countryside and the issues faced by many in rural areas; focusing on the area surrounding the A465 which divides the post industrial landscape of the south Wales valleys from pastoral mid Wales. This road has been continually developed since the early 00’s and, importantly, has seen further development with the help of European funding. Interested in exploring the complex social and cultural identity of the British countryside, and its significance as a social and political object, I looked to inject a contemporary view of this landscape and understand its contemporary identity.
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Joseph is a British photographer and artist working between London and Bristol who recently completed his MA in Photography at the University of the West of England (UWE). Joseph’s practice is concerned with social and environmental roles, focusing primarily on our sense of place and how we affect and are affected by the environments we inhabit; this results in images which focus on cultural and social identity as well as environmental relationships. Working in a documentary style his photographs are able to play with the narrative imbedded within the photograph. In-turn, he is able to bring ambiguity to the work presenting the unfamiliar in the familiar. His work has seen awards by the RPS Internal in 2019 and published by photography and art journals such as Der Greif, BOOOOOOM, Fotoroom, Loupe Magazine and Then There Was Us. Alongside this he has been commissioned by magazines such as the Sunday Times, applying his documentary style to fashion features for their weekend supplement ‘Style’, and producing portraits for the Telegraphs ‘Weekend Magazine’. joseph-horton.com @joseph_horton 39
Krerkburin Kerngburi FAR FROM HOME
FAR FROM HOME is a body of photographic work that I have made in the UK between 2018-19 – an exploration of a culture that is very different from my home, as well as my own “culture shock”. I am interested in observing human behaviour in a public setting with fresh eyes and encountering a culture that is very different from the one described by a tourist guidebook. Using a street photography approach, FAR FROM HOME represents a personal diary that records all sorts of things that I have encountered in my everyday life in the UK, and also reflects my perspective as a Thai photographer who is living in a completely foreign environment, rich with cultural diversity. This has inspired me tremendously to connect these public encounters with my personal experience, whilst incorporating a subtle dark humour, which I regard as a fundamental part of storytelling as well as my own sensibility. Humour is simple and straightforward; at the same time, it can subtly reveal meaningful undertones, encourage scepticism, and provoke new questions about the culture itself, and my own cultural differences.
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Krerkburin Kerngburi (b. 1988) is a street photographer from Chiang Mai, Thailand, and is a member of Street Photo Thailand collective. He was awarded a Scholarship Grant for the IPA Street Photography Workshop in Bangkok 2014, and was a Selected Finalist in the Italian Street Photo Festival 2019. His photographs are outstanding, weird, and full of both (dark) humour and mystery. His work was recently selected by the Martin Parr Foundation to be exhibited as part of the Carnival Pop-Up 2019 Exhibition at the Arnolfini (Bristol, UK) and was displayed alongside the work of Martin Parr, Matt Stuart and Lua Ribeira. Furthermore, his work was exhibited in Italian Streetphoto Festival 2019, Bangkok Street Photography Festival 2018, Photo Bangkok 2015, and elsewhere. His work has been published in Esquire (Thailand), Art4D, and elsewhere. He completed a Master of Arts in Photography at the University of the West of England Bristol, UK (2020) and is currently working as a freelance photographer. krerkburin-kerngburi.com @roc46 43
Laura Lamb Mallet
NEW EROTICA: ‘LOVE SHOP’ ‘Isn’t all sexuality commodified?’ I describe myself as a ‘scopophiliac’, I take a lot of pleasure in looking - arguably too much pleasure. ‘NEW EROTICA’ is a body of work aimed at addressing the complicated relationship between desire, narcissism and arousal. It’s an infusion of the traditional with the contemporary, and where I found my love of subverting societal norms. ’Love Shop’ is simultaneously a prequel and a sequel to ‘NEW EROTICA’, an exploration of the wider repercussions of mis-representation, glamorisation and ‘female’ aesthetics. As I further immerse into my personal desires, I am still questioning the assumption that, as a woman, my whole perception of sexuality and the erotic can merely be a product of a patriarchal society. I continue my journey navigating the underrepresentation of more peculiar appetites… There aren’t many things in life my parents now share other than me, but they’ve had long lasting love affairs with Soho, London where they both worked in advertising, and where I spent a lot of my childhood. How much did the bright lights of London’s sex industry influence me early on? What builds the foundations of what we later find appealing in life?
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Laura Lamb Mallet [b. 1992, London] is a visual artist and aspiring bombshell, focussed on the pursuit of pleasure. She has recently completed her Photography MA at UWE Bristol. Her work explores the role of the female body in contemporary culture, and the wider representation of sexuality in popular culture. lauralambmallet.com @lauralambmallet 47
Marcus Thurman
“I have fallen out of love with photography.”
Quote from the artist: “Time spent trying to say so much, about nothing, something for the sake of others, saying little of myself, to be a part of something, something insular and narcissistic, forgetting myself. In a world buried with things that need saying, I lost my voice.”
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Marcus Thurman is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher, using photography to explore the synergetic relationship between Society, Technology and Perception. The way in which Marcus works, and also how he represents himself as an artist, is as a constant thinker of the world who works creatively with photography to bring forward discussions that need to be had. When connections reveal themselves through constant research, Marcus then curates these ideas into synthesised, concurrent projects. Currently, Marcus is going through a stage of reflection and taking a step away from photography. He is considering his place within the world and how he wants to use this visual voice to better serve society. Talks: 2020, PhotocafÊ, GRAIN Projects (Birmingham) www.marcusandrewthurman.com @marcusandrewthurman 51
Michael Swann Noema
In 1961, in the small Spanish village of San Sebastian de Garabandal, four young girls had an apparition of the Virgin Mary. They entered a state of ecstasy in which they became completely unaware of their surroundings and sensory perceptions. Reportedly, witnesses would pinch the girls, pierce their skin with needles, lift them up and drop them onto rough rocks, and yet they remained entranced. The light and presence of the Virgin is all they claim to have experienced. Twenty years later, in the town of Medjugorje, Bosnia & Herzegovina, six children also had simultaneous visions of the Virgin, with similar ecstatic qualities. These visions have persisted for the last forty years, with several of the seers continuing to experience regular visitations today, often in the presence of hundreds of pilgrims. Noema is a body of work that investigates the aura of place and religious experience by searching for signs of the Virgin Mary’s presence in these two locations.
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Michael Swann is a photographic artist currently completing his MA at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). His work explores aspects of religious belief, mysticism and phenomenology and aims to understand how photography can be used to communicate such themes. Michael’s latest body of work, Noema (2018-20), follows the search for the Virgin Mary’s presence in two locations in which she has reportedly been seen, and has been shortlisted for the BUP Book Award and the ShowOFF exhibition at Krakow Photomonth 2020. michaelswann.co.uk @mike_rt_swann 55
Norberto Fernández Soriano Hythloday
Hythloday is a body of work that draws from one community’s fight against fracking, and presents their experience and beliefs through a visual interpretation of what is positioned between fact and fiction. In the United Kingdom, the trial site for hydraulic fracturefracking for shale gas – and its potential for national rollout and future commercial exploitation - is located in the countryside between the cities of Preston and Blackpool. A mile down the road from this site, a group of activists known to the local community as ‘The Protectors’ - set up camp, where they lived and fought to stop this fracking trial. In what might be described as a “photographic novella,” Hythloday transforms this physical place into an imagined post-fracking scenario, in which the activities, causes, fears, effects and thoughts situated in this place constitute a potential future landscape. Hythloday combines the characters and elements on the ground with the mood to create a journey through an unknown and strange place that reveals the tension between those protrayed and the land they inhabit.
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Norberto Fernández Soriano (1988, Spain) is a visual storyteller and book-maker. He uses photography to explore and interpret the world he inhabits, creating a common ground between contemporary social issues and his own life questions. Having previously studied Chemical Engineering, his scientific background and self-taught approach to photography has led him to investigate the narrative possibilities of the medium. He is currently studying for a Masters in Photography at University of West of England (UWE Bristol) his work has materialised in the form of the artistbook, Hythloday. norbertofernandezsoriano.com @norberto_berto 59
Phillipa Klaiber Vorest
On the English side of the welsh border is the forest of Dean. It is an ancient place, once the hunting reserve of Kings. It is a forest of plantation and ancient woodland, of farm land, heathland, quarries and mines. Locally it is known as the Forest, and its inhabitants, Foresters. In this forest there is a collective desire among the inhabitants to maintain the ecological balance of their land. There are age-old rites and laws on land use that can only be upheld by a Forester, contributing to the foundation of their culture and collective memory. Vorest considers the relationship between the narratives of the past and the environment in the present; a shift in perspective from the modern idea of ownership of land, to a more balanced relationship with it. This work combines my own photographs with digitallysourced aerial images and archival material found locally. It considers the land in detail, its topography, traces of past human activity and our role within it. I grew up on the border of the Forest. In this landscape, I am both a Forester and an outsider. Through Vorest, I endeavour to better understand this land and our place within it.
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Phillipa Klaiber is a long-form documentary photographer, whose projects are rooted in our connection to the land, social identity and the human need to belong. Her most recent work, Vorest, is a meditation on the changing landscape of the Forest of Dean. In 2019, Phillipa was shortlisted for the Film Photo Awards and GRAIN Bursary. (Based in the United Kingdom) phillipaklaiber.com @phillipaklaiber 63
Will Ruff DRINK
drink v. 3 (drink something in) watch or listen eagerly to something.
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Will Ruff (b.1994) graduated as student of the year at Plymouth University with a BA (Hons) in Photography in 2018. He is currently completing his MA in Photography at UWE. He is an artist and designer who tries to make decent books for alright people. Ruff is in the process of establishing Ruff Press, a small independent press attempting to democratise art / photo book publishing. Ruff Press supports the work of emerging artists through limited runs of prints and books. ruffpress.com @_ruffpress 67
QUOTE UNQUOTE is the 2020 MA Photography graduate show for UWE Bristol. Investigating an array of concepts, from the mythical to the personal, each individual offers a striking view and an insight to their creative process. As we celebrate and share our work, we also want to make sure to acknowledge our position of privilege within society, and to reflect upon and how we might be able to learn, help and contribute towards progress as a collective. With this in mind, 100% of funds raised from our exhibition and print sales will support:
www.quoteunquote.xyz @quoteunquote.xyz Design by Will Ruff. Thanking Aaron Schuman, Dr. Amak Mahmoodian and Dr. Shawn Sobers.
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