Since I have started Body of Work and Contextual Studies modules and to a certain degree with the previous Documentary module, I have become more and more interested in regeneration and its issues. I came across Frank Laws while I was specifically searching for artists who address gentrification etc in their work. Admittedly, I was looking for artists like Laws to help contribute to my extended written project’s argument but nevertheless I feel I stumbled upon an artist who raises pertinent topics and whose practice is evolving. Moreover, it was interesting to see an artist whose work specialises in something other than photography.
Category: Researching Artists
David Aylward – Interventions in Deptford
David Aylward is a musician and artist whose art takes the form of installations which intervene with the street. His work uses street art painted onto the floor as well as music to get his points across.
Age of the Image : Series 1, Episode 1
I recently watched Age of the Image, a BBC4 documentary on the history of images and how they are used up until present day. I really enjoyed this series even if it did try to pack a whole lot of information into each episode.
Continuum (2014) by Chris Dorley-Brown
I have been encouraged to look more closely at Chris Dorley-Brown’s Continuum (2014) series than his The Corners (2009-17) work. That is because both my tutor and I believe this series is more pertinent for my upcoming extended essay and my project in general. Continuum (2014) shows change more explicitly than The Corners (2009-17) and utilises repeat photography like my body of work. I was a bit frustrated that Continuum (2014), which I consider to be an enlightening series of diptychs, has been covered so little by writers on photography. However, while looking for sources, I found that an essay by Stewart Home had been written inside Dorley-Brown’s Continuum (2014) book, available on Apple Books. Luckily, I have access to an Apple device so I downloaded it and here are my thoughts on the interactive book and its introductory essay.
This Must Be the Place – David Campany (2010)
David Campany, the curator of This Must Be the Place (2010) and who is interviewed in the same-titled article by Aesthetica magazine, is an advocate of the spatial in photography, rather than just time-based photographic practice. I found various extracts from the interview interesting and have outlined my thoughts in this post.
Tom Lisboa
I went to a symposium at Goldsmiths on 29/02/2020 after photography walk in Deptford. Tom Lisboa was one of the artists talkings there. He talked of photography as a starting point for his practice but then using and manipulating it to make works that play with the limitations of photography. A lot of the work involves urban intervention where the photograph is site-specific and intervenes with the ‘natural’ urban landscape. I found this work very interesting but what interested me more was when he started discussing other work which at first glance appears more conventionally photographic.
The Town of Tomorrow – 50 Years of Thamesmead
I was recommended by my Contextual Studies tutor to have look at The Town of Tomorrow - 50 Years of Thamesmead (2019) by Here Press. My tutor didn’t explicitly say why he recommended it but I think it might have been to show me how other photographers have approached large-scale regeneration in different ways. He did also say he was fascinated himself by the older, mostly black and white photographs, which pointed to happier, more hopeful days. I feel looking at other photographers is important even if they’re approaching a similar subject in a different way because it can open new avenues to explore or just show how there is more than one route to follow.
Gill Golding
Gill Golding’s entire oeuvre is quite similar to my current body of work as well as Assignment 3 for my Documentary module. Similarities between my work and her’s include addressing themes of regeneration and the use of urban spaces. Also the manner Golding chooses to address them favours wider landscapes. As well as this she has chosen to photograph Deptford for one of her projects. I will look closely at Golding's Deptford: A Town in Transition (s.d.) project as well as one other to see how they relate to my current body of work and any differences there might be.
Fatimah Tuggar
Tuggar’s work in general disregards the believability element of photography (even though it is largely comprised of photographic elements). Instead Tuggar concentrates on constructing believable and telling relationships in the subject matter from which her montages are assembled.
Alexander Gronsky
My tutor recommended I look at some of the work of Alexander Gronsky so here are my thoughts on a couple of his projects that really caught my eye.
Photography 3: Contextual Studies 