deep sleep

Sweet Nothings, Vanessa Winship

Vanessa Winship drew my attention to this new online magazine that has just launched its inaugural issue. Deep Sleep was founded by and features work by a small group of contributors based in the same office in Shoreditch. 

david spero

Emma and John's, Tir Ysbrydol (Spiritual Land), 

Britdir Mawr, Pembrokshire, 2004, David Spero

Settlements is a body of work that David Spero has been working on since 2004 and is only now reaching a conclusion. However, given the photographer's commitment to the project it is clear that there will be an on-going relationship with the communities he has clearly become involved with. 

The artist, who graduated from the RCA in 1993, has spent time visiting and staying at the low impact communities located throughout the UK. Set in beautiful lush green countryside and dense forests these transitory homes are timeless, as Spero describes, 'these places look like they belong in the past, but at the same time they could be a future.'

In many ways the places are as far away from the manicured lawns, gardens and driveways of suburbia as one can imagine. The structures, artfully cobbled together from local natural and recycled materials, are built in harmony with the local environment to the extent that they seem to become part of the surroundings. Spero focuses on the the evolution of the settlements that see people come and go, where children are born, grow and educated in a world where the buildings emerge in a natural, organic and ad hoc way. 

The communities work towards being as self sufficient and sustainable as possible, offering a refreshing antidote to consumer society. Camilla Brown, Senior Curator at the Photographers' Gallery described Spero's work as 'a powerful visual testimony to these people who chose to live their lives according to their ideological beliefs within a contemporary society.'

bettina von zwehl

Alina, 2004  Bettina von Zwehl

Bettina von Zwehl spoke about her work last week and at the end of the lecture she gave the everyone in the audience a slide from the presentation - symbolically marking a move from slideshow/analogue to powerpoint/digital. 

In the lucky dip I pulled out the image above which is from a series - created for a Photoworks commission - in which Royal College of Music students were photographed when totally absorbed listening to music for twenty minutes in the dark. 

In the morning we had been introduced to Relational Art - time/place, effect, embodiment - and in a way I felt that Bettina's work bore the elements of this way of working as she is dependent on a reaction from the participant in order to create the work. 

Bettina sets up situations in a specified place - her studio or on location - where she employs members of the public to work with her in the creation of an image. In this case she asked music students to listen to Fur Alina by Arvo Part in the dark for a prolonged period of time. The music - a calm, meditative and repetitive piece - is played through twice over a twenty minute period and at some point the artist sets off a sudden flash, perhaps once or twice - in order to capture a private moment of intense concentration. The resonant images become the embodiment of Bettina's original idea for the work.

By setting up what is almost a scientific experiment or laboratory situation, Bettina is able to capture moments of extreme beauty and quiet reflection that are both honest and distinctly human.

eventually, everything connects

Peter Fraser, Untitled, from Ice and Water, 1993

Unfortunately, I missed Peter Frazer's lecture at LCC on February 11th, but looked at his website which is fascinating and read Gary Badger's essay, Eventually, Everything Connects.  

In this eloquent piece, Badger describes how Charles and Ray Eames' remarkable eight minute cult movie, Power of Ten, became a formative inspiration behind Frazer's work, along with the time he  spent with William Eggleston, 'the master', in Memphis. 

''Inevitably, materials change their state or bound, both box and glass fragment have degenerated from being 'things of this world' to formless chaos' bound. The glass may even be considered a 'thing of value.' Frazer of course has already explored this in previous series, but here in the disparate nature of things to which he has attended, asking us to draw broader connections, make Peter Frazer not only a more difficult but a more ambitious piece of work, along 'universe in a grain of sand' lines. In these Chinese boxes of connections, Fraser might be proposing a model or metaphor for the world, its past, present and future, by tapping into a small part of the cycle that will reach closure eons into the future - formlessness to form to a new formlessness."

Gary Badger, 2005

esther teichmann

esther teichmann, Mythologies, 2008

Esther Teichmann spoke at LCC a couple of weeks ago to an incredibly rude audience who seemed to think it was ok to come and go, talk, answer the phone and generally show little regard for the fact that this artist was showing not only beautiful but powerful and personal work. 

It was difficult not to be overwhelmed by the creative energy of this young, prolific and clearly gifted photographer who splits her time between completing an MPhil at the RCA, lecturing at LCC and Brighton, producing ad campaigns and fashion shoots, and linking up with fellow creative spirit, Spartacus Chetwynd, on minibus forays to galleries in Berlin.

santu mofokeng

Ishmael, Eyes Wide Shut

'One can't travel far within this country before coming upon shadowed ground of negative remembrances of violence and tragedy. This partly explains my peregrinations here in foreign lands. In 1997 I started to visit the shadow grounds of Europe and Asia. I wanted to see how other countries were dealing with places associated with negative memories. The demise of apartheid has brought to force a crisis of spiritual insecurity for the many who believe in the spiritual dimensions of life. Today this consciousness of spiritual forces, which helped people cope with the burdens of apartheid, is being undermined by mutations in nature. If apartheid was a scourge the new threat is a virus - invisible perils both.'

Santu Mofokeng, The Namib, Namibia, 1997 

Exhibition runs January 14 - February 28, 2008 at Rivington Place

fay goodwin

Leaping Lurcher, 1972

Copper Beach, Stourhead 1983

'I don't get wrapped up in technique and the like. I have a simple rule and that is to spend as much time in the location as possible. You can't expect to take a definitive image in half an hour. It takes days often years. And in fact I don't believe there is such a thing as a definitive picture of something. The land is a living, breathing thing and the light changes its character every second of every day. That's why I love it so much.' Fay Goodwin, 2004

24:2009

24:2009 will be celebrating their sixth annual show in Greenwich. Every year since 2004 , between the hours of midnight New Years Eve and midnight New Years Day, 24 photographers have looked to find an image that sums up the essence of that hour for them - be it a social, political or an environmental concern - or a personal reflection of that moment in time.

This year 24photography will be staging two exhibitions, the first in The Royal Park Greenwich will feature the 24 images taken on the 1st January 2009 while the nearby Viewfinder Gallery will stage an interim retrospective, showcasing the 144 images created by the photographers who have contributed to the movement to date. 

Nicky Wilcox, one of the founding members of 24photography, described the images, 'as a subtle catalogue of our time, raising questions of where we are and where we might be by 24:2010'.

I have been contributing images to 24photography for the past three years and the themes that have emerged in my own work are concerns for our fragile earth and ensuring a safe future for our children. 

This year I chose to spend the evening of the 1st January 2009 in the Maternity wing at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing of UCLH, where my own children were born in 2001 and 2004 respectively - the year 24photography was initiated. My son will be 24 when this project is complete and I can only hope that actions I take now will have some positive impact on his future world - however small that might be.

The evening I spent with doctors, nurses and parents at UCLH once again confirmed the immense respect I have for the staff at this hospital. The stories the nurses have to tell, the focus and dedication of the doctors and the visible pain of the parents is all to tangible and in a way to fragile to photograph. Instead I chose to photograph an empty cot and use the words written in a christmas letter to the staff thanking them again for saving the lives of twins born in the same month as my son.

The exhibition opens on the 24th February and runs through until the 19th March 2009.

daan van golden

Youth is an art, 1992/2008

Daan van Golden appropriates images discovered in the world around him. His art draws on his own fascinations and 'out-of-the-ordinary' moments that occur in life. He finds beauty in the everyday and treats the mundane with integrity and respect, by showing us familiar things in a new way.

I caught the last day of van Golden's exhibition at Camden Arts Centre on Sunday which brought together paintings from the last thirty years along with photographs including a selection from the series Youth is an art, images of his daughter as she was growing up between 1978 and 1996. 

There is a captivating symbiosis between the meticulously worked paintings and the fleeting moments captured of his daughter as she grew. Van Golden is a gentle artist able to perceptively capture a sense of beauty in the everyday which is at once joyful and serene.

olafur eliasson

Beauty, 1993 

Minding the world

'Today we cannot afford not to think about the environmental consequences of our individual actions; about the relation between the individual and the collective. And we have reached a stage where such deliberations can be integrated with our aesthetic feelings.' 

Olafur Eliasson : Light Conditions

figuring landscapes

Winter Light Sophia Dahlgren

I attended four of the screenings of a collection of compelling moving image works drawn from the political and cultural history that links the UK and Australia at Tate Modern this weekend. The works in Figuring Landscapes address questions of ecological survival, post industrialism, gender, the touristic gaze, and the social, political and cultural status of indigenous people in a post-colonial society.

Andrew Kotting's Jaunt up the Thames from my old stomping ground of Leigh on Sea to Westminster was a particular favourite, along with Matt Hulse's Sine Die,  Tony Hill's vertigenous  Downside Up, Dryden Goodwin's inspirational Flight, Sofia Dahlgren's mesmerising Winter Light, Emily Richardson's Petrolia, and Margaret Tait's touching Portrait of Ga. 

Devised by Catherine Elwes and Steven Ball, Figuring Landscapes is a riveting and enlightening body of work brought together in a series of screenings over the weekend. I am sorry I can't make it for the final day tomorrow which will be followed by a discussion led by Steven Bode, director of film & video umbrella. 

joy gregory

Joy Gregory is presenting a new body of work that has been created as part of an Artists Residence celebrating 60 years of the NHS at University Hospital Lewisham. The work is a series of light boxes featuring a major figure in the history of the hospital and accompanied by readings of new work by Poet in Residence, Gale Burns. 

purpose

The latest edition of purpose - an elegant French webzine - has dedicated it's latest issue to childhood - which is of particular interest to me. The issue is a curious mix of extremely well known and lesser known work accompanied by an original soundtrack.

daniel lillie

We are the Maesglas boys

We ain't got no money

We drinks lots of beer

We drink Double Diamond 'cos it's full of good cheer.

When you'r walking down Maesglas Road

doors and windows open wide

The you'll hear ol'Sheppy shout

Get your fuckin' woodbines out!

We are the Maesglas boys

I saw Daniel Lillie's project 'I'll see you on the far post' presented at the Folio Forum at the Photographer's Gallery in January and was impressed by his sensitive portrayal of working men and their families on the Maesglas estate Newport, Wales. 

The images are intimate and appealing, they give a strong sense of day to day life in a tight-knit community where different generations of the same family support and sustain one another. Such close relationships are central to survival when faced with the insecurity of low-paid transient employment.

'Historically, socially and culturally the workingman has been a figure of strength and integrity, a foreboding presence both in the family and in the community.' Is how Lillie describes the inspiration behind his work. 'These images are about what men do with their time, be it with their family, friends or alone. They are about working and not working.' A sentiment prescient of the current dismal climate where working men's jobs hang in the balance. 

Lillie's presence as documenter is ghost-like, there is clearly a sense of mutual respect and trust, both on behalf of the photographer and the subjects he is spending time to record. Although an 'outsider' it is clear that he has been accepted into the community as an insider able to witness and document the intimacies of ordinary life.

The photographer was angered by Andrew O'Hagan's recent George Orwell Memorial lecture  'What went wrong with the working class?' which argues that 'the English working class is dead - it's traditions and values have been replaced by sentimentality and the false promise of celebrity and credit cards.' 

'With my project I intend to show that, while not the political force it once was, the working class exist and are not a Jeremy Kyle watching, McDonald's eating, Vicky Pollard-esque, catalogue dependent, benefit scrounging, powerless body of people.'

Lillie's images were received with praise at the Folio Forum lead by Joy Gregory, who encouraged him to return and continue documenting the community. I feel that this is a timely body of work that records life on the estate in a social realist tradition - reminiscent of work by Chris Killip and Graham Smith, and explored by filmmakers, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach - and looks at how a community faces and addresses the prospect of a bleak future. 

It will be interesting to see if traditional working class values will rise to sustain and strengthen when times are bad.

jean dieuzaide

'People often think that it is necessary to go to the far end of the world to act as a photographer. But photography is not synonymous with being removed from one's usual surroundings; it also has to do with rediscovering the common things of everyday life that we can no longer see, things we do not take the time to see.The thousands of objects that share our intimacy have something to tell us, but our eye does not listen to them: they play with light to draw our attention, and they are surely sorry for our indifference, as they feel they are part of ourselves.'

Jean Dieuzaide, French Photographer b 1921 d 2003

Val Williams' obituary of Jean Dieuzade