INSTALLATION

‘Out of the void they came to dream’, an installation. Curated by Uncoated, this piece was shown at the group exhibition ‘Identity Unveiled’, at Berlin’s Glogau Air, which looked into the masks that we wear in society whilst discovering our identity. The question ‘how connected to the self are people willing to be' underlined each of the artist’s works.

This installation consisted of three photo series and the short film ‘A Dream within a dream’. The works were projected onto a container of water, which sat on atop of two speakers. Sound frequencies played beneath, as their vibration transformed the surface of the water into ever-shifting and changing fractals.

GROUP EXHIBITION / X BANK

Some of my works will be shown at The Photo Room, in Amsterdam’s X BANK, which has been curated by Uncoated. 

The Photo Room is an immersive audio-visual environment that aims to give the visitor a new perspective on how we experience emerging art photography.

This piece was created in collaboration with the artists Synchrodogs, Tom Hegen, Inez Agnese, Giuseppe Gradella, Wonjun Jeong, Matthew Coleman, Bryce Willem, Luke & Mandy, Lana Prins, Bruna Mayer, Lisette Appeldorn, Cristina Coral. 

Director and curator: Josephine de Fijter
Sound and music: Atelier Francesco
Video editing and animation: Leonardo Franke

GROUP EXHIBITION

––––› UNCOATED PRESENTS: IDENTITY UNVEILED ‹––––

’The visage perceived by others, it establishes a passage to transcend the outer world from the enclosed inner-self.’

Emmanuel Levinas

I was recently part of a group exhibition that took place at the the GlogauAIR artist residency, in Berlin. The exhibition ‘Identity Unveiled’ looked into how we can balance our role within the social system whilst discovering our identity with the question ‘how connected to the ‘Self’ are people willing to be?’

The exhibition was curated by Uncoated, which provides emerging photographers a platform to shine a photographic light on the struggle of defining one’s identity. Uncoated is a new, Berlin-based platform for contemporary photography that supports photographers by organizing socially relevant exhibitions throughout Europe.

In today’s society addictions, suicide rates, burnouts and interest in self-help books are increasing exponentially. Curator Josephine de Fijter researched into this phenomenon for 2 years and talked with numerous people. The result? Almost everyone she encountered struggles with the subject of identity in their own personal way. By hosting this exhibition, De Fijter hoped to create a starting point for raising awareness on the subject of identity. 

Participating artists:

✫ Inez Agnese

✫ Carla Cabanas

✫ Matthew Coleman

✫ Tom Hegen

✫ Bruna Mayer

For the show I created an installation titled ‘out of the void they came to dream’, which used sound frequencies, water, and a projector, to have each of the pictures emerge across the vibrating surface. Some of the works included for this installation /

PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION: MICHAEL WOLF

At the FLOWERS EAST GALLERY, in Shoreditch, is a collection of work from the photographer Michael Wolf. Primarily the images shown are from China and Japan, with these colossal prints of buildings, consisting of a seemingly uncountable amount of floors, all stacked up on one another. One instantly feels claustrophobic, which is a theme that seems to run throughout his work.     There are a number of images from his series 'Tokyo Compression', where we stand safely on the other side of subway doors, free to move about on the outside, whilst looking inside where bodies have been rammed together, and again packed tight like the apartments in his large-scale pictures. And yet, in these images, there are some beautifully quiet moments, as if some of them have been suspended in time, frozen; dream-like, ethereal, and held in place behind the condensation of the glass.

With Michael Wolf you are given the ultimate ticket of voyeurism, the chance to stand unseen, and to gaze at miniature, contained worlds, small pockets of living spaces encased behind glass.

there is also an interesting audio interview with Michael Wolf, at Lens Culture.

PHOTOGRAPHY SLIDESHOW, FROM THIS YEAR'S FOTO8 EXHIBITION

A little late, though well worth bringing up, is the photography slideshow from this years FOTO8 summer show. It is a powerfully stirring selection of photographs, from humour and wit, to fantastical, almost unbelievable events. We are confronted with photojournalism and the raw realism of so many stark, revealing moments in the people we're viewing. It is a wonderful insight into so many diverse types of photography right now, of its many, proliferating directions.

The show also includes a really good friend of mine, Nick Ballon, who I have been lucky to assist on numerous shoots. I have learned a great deal over the years from Nick, and continue to pester him even today, with many photography questions he always answers with the utmost patience.

'DEAR AMERICA', A PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES CURATED BY ZARA

I took this photograph at Seaside Heights, in New Jersey, which was used as part of the 'Dear America' series, curated by ZARA for their launch into the U.S. The series consists of 50 photographs for the 50 States of America, a quiet and gentle series, full of texture and landscapes and peaceful sights that undulate across the country.

PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION: DON McCULLIN

"Photography isn’t looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures."

Although best known for his war photography, there is a lot more to Don McCullin than his stirring B&W photographs of the Vietnam War. He shot strong, eye-opening pictures of the homeless in the East End of London, as well as the poor in the North of England, in the early sixties, giving us these stark, industrial landscapes where we can still see the scars of World War II; a battered, beaten country, a shadow of its former, colonial self. And now, at the Tate Britain, there is a collection of his British landscapes, capturing the changing seasons of England, as he explains in this short clip on TateShots..

This collection is on at the Tate Britain until 4 March 2012, admission is free.