Exhibition Work # 2

Continuing work on images for exhibition - the prints have been eroded by activity in Levenshulme high street. 

I also decided to scan the backs of the images as there was something I really liked about the physicality of the work - the marks and ephemera left by people who would never know that their footprints had been immortalised.

I feel that the marks are contextualised - the people of Levenshulme hurry up and down the high street every day, and this is demonstrated by the marks on the images. The community in Levenshulme is being gradually eroded by the loss of the traditional high street and this erosion and loss is shown in the partial destruction of the images.

This is something that I would like to explore further - leaving images in the high street for longer to create much more damage to the images. I would also like to place my images within some of the shops so that they are trodden on by customers. In particular, there is a butchers that has been owned by Monica Johnson for 28 years, and traded even before that (my  mother and grandmother recall shopping there) and I would really like to focus on this shop to show that these more traditional businesses are still in demand.

Research: destroyed images

Joachim Schmid

I was introduced to the work of Schmid by a fellow student on the MA. His diverse work is extremely interesting and conceptual but his work with found images is particularly relevant to this project.

In Pictures from the Street Schmid collects images found in public spaces - this inspired my idea of placing my images in Levenshulme High Street - I like the idea of people finding my photographs and wondering why they are there, but I also suspect that many people will not notice them; the images, which have been carefully researched, taken and printed, simply become part of the scene - further detritus in the street. Something precious (to me, at least) becomes throwaway, discarded pieces of ephemera.

Seba Kurtis

Kurtis owns a collection of family photos; following a financial crisis in the 1980s, his family home was repossessed along with all belongings. The family were left with nothing but a shoebox of photographs, which were later damaged in a flood. The damage to the images represents the damage to the family and it is this link that I hope to recreate in my own work, where the damage to my images is indicative of the damage to the community and the spirit of the high street.

I also like the backs of the images, which are explored by Kurtis as part of the physicality of the work;

This may be something that I explore in my own work, perhaps as representation of the unseen areas of Levenshulme.

Stephen Gill

Gill's project Buried also explores damaged photographs. Gill buried photographs in order to allow the earth to penetrate them and to introduce a loss of control to the work. I will also be giving up some of the control over my images, which is a difficult thing to do as a photographer as one is so intrinsically in control of the entire process, from start to finish. The element of uncertainty in the outcome of the work enables an objective distance from the images.

Exhibition Work

Having pooled all Levenshulme images, this is the current selection for printing;


Shop Fronts

Details

All images have been sent for printing, and will then be placed in Levenshulme High Street. I will write a note on the back of each one, asking people to return the images to my address if found - this way, I hope that I will recover more than by simply returning to find the photographs myself.

Levenshulme # 4

Further images of the high street;

I wanted to work physically with the destruction of the surface of my images to echo the destruction of the high street community. I experimented with different ways of working into the photographs.

screwed up photographs

sandpapered images

burned images

The more successful images looked as though the surface erosion had occurred naturally over time rather than being forced (such s the burned images). I decided to place images in the high street itself and allow erosion to occur through the activity taking place on the high street.

Levenshulme # 3

A shoot to capture anything that caught my eye on the high street.

Several themes emerged, including the ongoing 'shop fronts', but I was also drawn to small areas of interest such as graffiti and handwritten signs.

I decided to crop the images into a square format to retain the aesthetic consistency between my images.

 

Shops, including the recently torched Cha Cha's

Capturing the detail and busy aesthetic of the high street

Some of the many spaces for sale or to let along the high street

Signs along the street

Following a crit, it was suggested that the simpler images worked well as they provided a strong graphic aesthetic. I set out to photograph more of these views in preparation for the forthcoming exhibition.

MA EXHIBITION:

The World According to MAs

Self Made Gallery, Northern Quarter

31.01.13 (private view) - 17.02.13