61
photographs of 3 artists are exhibited:
Terry
Wright - EXLIBRIS & other photographs
Kate
Mellor - "Blue Shift"
Charlie
Meecham - "The E20 Project - The M62 Section".
Terence
Wright is a photographer living in Oxfordshire, UK. He is also a Visiting
Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford
where he is working on his project ‘Moving Images: Media Images of Refugees’.
He is a Visiting Tutor in Visual Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
Formerly he taught Visual Studies for eight years at the UK’s National
Film and Television School and was Reader in Media Arts at the University
of Luton. In 1986 he was awarded a PhD by the University of London for
his work on Photography, Art and Visual Perception. In addition to his
photography work (for BBC Television, Independent Television News, etc.),
he has written ‘The Photography Handbook’ (published by Routledge) and
is currently writing ‘Visual Impact: Culture and the Meaning of Images’
for Berg publishers and ‘Photography: the Key Concepts’ for Routledge.
He has written extensively on photography, given conference papers world-wide
and has exhibited his photographs in the UK, Poland and Russia. In collaboration
with the Polish Academy of Sciences, he recently curated the exhibition
‘Malinowski – Witkacy. Photography: between Science and Art’ which took
place this June as part of the festival Krakow 2000.
The
series Ex Libris is concerned with the representation of landscape:
the ways that aspects of the environment are categorized and documenting
some written poetic responses. The photographs invite the viewer to compare
different forms of representation - the book contains one package of information
which the photograph has encapsulated together with a small section of
the landscape. The images aim to be evocative of Victorian typologies,
while conveying a sense of reflection and contemplation.
Traditionally
landscape photography has been concerned with exploring the 'picturesque',
yet the photographs on display aim to invite the viewer to question our
awareness of the changing environment. They aim for a simplicity in their
selection, but hope to reveal some of the complexities of environmental
change. The camera has the potential to reveal aspects of the landscape
which would normally go unnoticed. The changing light and the seasonal
transformations of the landscape can be recorded and compared. Where traces
of human activity can be discovered, parts of the landscape stand as empty
stage sets - a witness to something having taken place, yet anticipating
future activity.
The
photographs mark the passage of time; recording the changes that occur
in the environment due to the passing seasons, the weather and human activity.
They present the characteristic features of the landscape: trees, plants,
farm carts, etc. combined with observations of the colour and changing
light so as to convey the atmosphere of each location. Many of the photographs
reflect remnants of childhood memory as well as historical changes that
have taken place.
Kate
Mellor is a British landscape photographer best known for her series of
panoramic images of the British coast; the exhibition "Island: The Sea
Front," which explores notions of territory, until recently toured by the
Impressions Gallery, York and now by the British Council. A book
of the exhibition "Island" has been published by Dewi Lewis.
"Blue
shift" - This work is from a photographic
sequence following the river Calder.
If you walk a mere 50 paces from this station you come to a bridge where
you can see the water on its way across Yorkshire. The source rises several
hundred feet above Todmorden - the next station on the up line.
If you take the down line you will follow roughly the course of the Calder
in the direction of Leeds. It joins the Aire and later, travelling onwards,
the Ouse and the Humber, reaching Hull. From here you can take the boat
to Rotterdam, following a preceding route of the river in the age when
this island was attached to the mainland of Europe.
The sequence is not only about this one kind of journey, the joining of
rivers creating an historic international route way. It also signifies
movement on social and environmental levels, referring to a journey from
rural roots to urban development - a process which gives rise to a collective
nostalgia. The industrial revolution can be seen to be still playing itself
out along the river - from the clear open space of moors grazed by dwindling
flocks of sheep to the crumbling mills further down the valley.
The image of the river has the associative qualities of purity and this
is how we like to imagine the river still exists - as a place where children
can safely dabble and dam in the little pools and reaches. We hold to this
picture of innocence and purity at the very same time that we know
much of the environment is, in fact, degraded. (The river Calder flows
perhaps a quarter of a mile before working its way through a coal dump;
notices near Dewsbury give telephone numbers for those unfortunate enough
to fall in - nearby are signs of little dams and tracks of small fingers
in the mud; a stretch near Elland is pronounced "biologically dead".)
The properties of water, carrying material around the physical support
system, are essentially of fluidity and interconnection, moving from one
area to another. The intention of the aesthetic is to accentuate this quality.
The photographic method echoes the effect water has on light - refracting
it, bending the wavelengths a little. It is also easier to live with the
illusion of the pure landscape. It is the dream image which persists in
the back of our minds as we conduct our daily lives, largely on traffic
filled roads, bent over the computer, walking through the anonymous spaces
of modern urbanized life, the airport, the malls.
But we remain unsettled in our urban environment which is why we reproduce
the landscape features, source and waterfall in architectural concrete
and steel at the heart of our cities - these are monuments to our connections
with a natural world, a world from which we cannot be parted.
Blue
shift is a scientific term. In the 1960s a shift in the wavelengths of
red light being emitted from distant bodies in space supported the 'big
bang' theory, proving that these stars were moving away and therefore establishing
that the universe was expanding. Artists and authors at the time stripped
this term of its scientific context using this concept of a shift in light
by culturally associating it to such ideas as images and actions from a
past time connecting with the present, or simply that of expansion in any
area of life. A blue shift in wavelengths of light is the opposite
in principle.
Charlie
Meecham "The E20 Project - The M62 Section".
The
E20 is a designated Euro Route that runs from Limerick to St. Petersburg
and forms part of a European network of road and rail routes designed to
provide trade connecting the EEC countries together. The E20 crosses Britain
via the M62.
This
project grew out of an earlier commissions to photograph a section of the
road that runs through Hull from the ferry terminal to the Humber Bridge.
For my part, I decided to make two sets of pictures, one series being taken
from moving vehicles including buses and trains and the other from fixed
positions sometimes looking back or responding to various questions raised
be the travelling glance, the idea being to set up a dialogue by pairing
the pictures and possible forming a sort of visual echo.
Working the first section of the project encouraged me to extend this idea
across this country and further afield along the whole route. I saw this
as an opportunity of forming a link with Europe. The route goes through
Northern Scandinavian countries rather than across the central mainland.
My first thoughts centered on the history of early trade routes such as
salt ways and silk routes. The countries that this road passes through
could create a variety and a progression of images.
This year I have concentrated on the M62 and have made several journeys
with regular drivers. I have found that the whole process of travel, in
particular, our expectations and perceptions are both framed and modified
by our experience in an isolating way. Containerization also means that
truck drivers only do certain sections of the route and increased speed
and comfort have had a tendency to cut us off from outside world - communication
is mainly through phone and radio.
What is foremost is the aspect of encroachment. We may have been made very
aware of the pressures put upon the landscape by yet more road building,
but from the perception of the traveling along this route, we can also
recognize that a huge amount of new building is being erected within access
of the road. It is only when the M62 as a corridor route way crosses the
Pennines that there is a pause in this development, but on either side
new estates for housing and trade are fast advancing. Sadly the architectural
styles are now so pre-packaged that there is little to define regional
distinction or style.
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