Pillbox, Kent (1977)
Scotland
A campervan tour of Scotland provided inspiration in the least likely of places - a municipal dump up at Durness, old WWII bunkers on Orkney, and outdated MOD architecture at Cape Wrath. Brutal architecture in brutal, inhospitable landscapes...
Durness Dump
An interesting caravan set-up, on the dump. I was about to go in and explore the 'shack' when I noticed a man moving around inside the caravan window! The site was at least a mile from any other house in Durness, and in the centre of a council rubbish tip, surrounded by WWII concrete bunkers - a most unusual spot to choose to live.
35mm
Cape Wrath
Hoxa Head
Levenshulme # 2
A second shoot on Levenshulme High Street, using a 35mm camera to draw less attention. A bright, sunny day, capturing not just the high street itself but some of the side streets and backstreets, in which businesses also thrive.
Elbow Street - a locally-known community (mainly consisting of one family in various houses), who take the maintenance and safety of their street very seriously. They are often featured in local news, and mount numerous campaigns with the council.
child urinating on the high street (centre)
Liverpool
Whilst taking photos for the Open Eye project, I also took advantage of the day out by going to Liverpool One and the Welsh Streets (former home of Ringo Starr). The contrast between the two areas was vast - from the surrealism of a 'beach' in the middle of the Liverpool One Mall, to meeting 'Stan the Man', a soul singer living in one of the few inhabited houses in the Welsh Streets, and seeing his frankly crazy house.
Liverpool One
The Welsh Streets, Toxteth
Stan the Man
Professional Links: Open Eye Gallery
My main Professional Links project was in collaboration with the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool. The project consisted of using the Gallery's photographic archive to inspire a piece of work that was then published in a book. The book would live in the Gallery archive, thus creating a circular piece of work.
I was inspired more by the idea of the archive than any specific images, and decided to document the various locations of Open Eye Gallery. The images and text for the book are shown here;
"In its early days, Open Eye was a heady mix of art and activism, a DIY operation run on a shoestring by artists, volunteers and a tiny staff team...
Open Eye published a magazine, ran workshops and training courses, hired out equipment, screened films, commissioned photographic, performance and moving image works, and organised campaigns and community projects...
Open Eye was one of the city's creative and social hubs. It had the city's main bus station on its doorstep, a popular cafe next door and the radical bookshop News from Nowhere as a close neighbour"
(Open Eye Gallery publicity)
1977-1988: Whitechapel/Hood Street
1989-1995: 110-112 Bold Street
1996-2011: Wood Street
2011- : Liverpool Waterfront
In 2011 Open Eye moved for the fourth time. All of its locations exist within a radius of less than half a mile.
I was intrigued by the was the Open Eye photographic archive functions as a representation of the history of the organisation. Its various locations have become part of its history and are archived, along with the experiences and ideas, within its walls. Drawing from a personal interest in regeneration, and ambivalence towards the gallery's latest transformation, I documented the buildings that had once housed the collection, including its present home.
Each location aspired to be an improvement on the one before. With its latest incarnation, Open Eye becomes part of the creative space that houses the Tate Gallery and the Museum of Liverpool. In its publicity, the gallery reveals that the new premises are "twice the size" of the former space in Wood St. While this is a positive development, I can't help feeling something of the original energy of the gallery is dissipated, with each successive change of premises, I attempt to convey this loss by the use of destroyed photographs.
Professional Links: Ronald McDonald Project
As part of the Professional Links programme on the MA, students work with organisations to produce work in a professional context. I chose two organisations for which to produce work - Open Eye Gallery and The Ronald McDonald charity project that involved producing artwork for a children's unit at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester.
The brief for the work consisted of producing photographic images under a variety of titles. I produced some work for the 'Sports' floor, creating a series of grids that represented sport in Manchester;
A Project Decision: Levenshulme
Feeling frustrated by the lack of direction in my MA project, I decided to take advantage of the first sunny day of the year and take a walk around Levenshulme, my local area. I strolled down the high street and realised that what I had been looking for was right on my doorstep;
Levenshulme is a place of contradictions and contrasts: a community of middle class and working class residents; a mixture of many ethnicities, incorporating Polish, Irish, Romanian and Asian communities; a bohemian and arty suburb, with much poverty, yet one in which residents take an interest in making improvements. The residents view the area as being forgotten by the council – not poor enough to warrant the most urgent attention, yet not prosperous enough to lift itself out of the degeneration that occurs. The high street is an excellent example of this; a once-thriving commercial area that is now over-run with takeaways, pound shops and independent retailers struggling to survive. Levenshulme is a microcosm of the political and aesthetic aspects of Manchester I have been hoping to capture through my photographs.
I decided to document Levenshulme high street.
I took my Mamiya 6x6, aiming to capture each shop individually in a square frame. This turned out not to be entirely possible but I was pleased with the shots I got.
My aim now is to return to the high street over the coming year, documenting the changing face of this stretch of road. I would like to improve my aesthetic regimentation in the images, through using a tripod and possibly a 5x4 camera.
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