eleanorstraker-blog

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Future Work

For this blog I have decided to use it to aid my own photography work and research. This blog started out simply for a critical theory project - a way to store research and for it to be graded.

However, now I want to continue it in a different direction. To still use it to store my research (mostly artists and photographers) but to also post ideas for upcoming projects, research for those projects and my own photography work now. 

In most aspects of my work, I want to explore family photography a lot more. As seen on this blog I have done some research into it and actually wrote an essay based on how family photography has been used etc by contemporary artists and photographers. I’m finding it interesting because I look at my own family, knowing it isn’t the typical family lifestyles or ideals and wanting to create work around that. 

So far I’ve photographed my father and grandmother, documenting their hoarding problems of which are down to sentimental and emotional issues. This time I have been considering looking at my autistic brother, his drug abuse and his forced separation from my family. Documenting him and my family during what was the most difficult time of our lives. 

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Tuva Kleven - My Childhood Paradise

This is a series of images about Kleven growing up with her sister and spending many summers at their grandmother’s house. The images are a mixture of family photographs she photographed and ones scanned to show the full picture. 

The series was created after her sister had died and the house had become bittersweet to go back to. 

Kleven photographed rooms in the house such as her sister’s room, the kitchens and everywhere else that she had strong memories and emotional connections.

http://www.tuvakleven.no/childhoodparadise#12 

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Jo Spence - Beyond The Family Album 1979

"I began (through Beyond the Family Album) to reverse the process of the way I had been constructed as a woman by deconstructing myself visually in an attempt to identify the process by which I had been 'put together'. I still feel that personal is political. There is no way I could have understood fully the political implications of trying to represent other people (however well intentioned) if I had not first of all begun to explore how I had built a view of myself through other people's representations of me." Jo Spence http://www.jospence.org/work_index.html 

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Trish Morrissey - Seven Years 

Trish Morrissey is another photographer who I am considering for discussion within my essay because she has also explored the use of family photographs within her work.

Her series “Seven Years” times to deconstruct the trope of family photography by mimicking it. The title, of which refers to the age gap between Morrissey and her sister.

Throughout the images Morrissey works as the director, author and actor by staging herself and her sister in tightly controlled, fictional mis en scene based on the convention of her own family snapshots.

Morrissey uses props and clothing from the time period to recreate the authentic family photographs from the 1970’s and 1980’s. This obviously can link back to the constructed image essay question as well which is very interesting.

I really enjoy these images and think it’s interesting to recreate the images from family photographs. However I know that the reason Morrissey recreated these images was so that she could make them with the actual emotions and tensions of the times rather than the fake and forced smiles in the old snapshots.

http://www.trishmorrissey.com/works_pages/work-sy/statement.html

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Natalie Laydon - The Family Curse 

The work Natalie Laydon has produced for her project “The Family Curse” is very interesting for the essay question I haven chosen to write about. I like how she’s used personal experience and family issues to produce this work - it must have been a difficult project to make work for.

I think the way she created the work by using her blood to link to the Deep Vein Thrombosis (the disease that the work is based around as women in the family have died from this) which appears within the series of old found family polaroids.

This is an interesting way to work with family photographs by destroying them in a sense to represent something that we cannot see such as the disease.

I am considering to discuss Laydon’s work within the essay as an example of how aspects of family photographs have been used to produce new work.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/natalielaydonphotography/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1358637370846267 

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Essay

For my essay I have chosen question 5; 

“how has aspects of family photographs been used and transformed by contemporary artists and photographers?” 

The reason I chose this question is because of the Side Gallery exhibition of Murray Ballard’s work “The Prospect of Immortality”.

In this exhibition there was an image of other photographs, that were portraits of the patients that are currently in cryostasis. What I noticed was that those portraits (of family members and pets) were what their family donated so that the identity of the family member would not be forgotten. They were family photographs. 

From this I wanted to know more about how family photographs are used and experimented with or even used to influence new work. 

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21.03.17 

Disappearance at sea - Mare Nostrum Exhibition

Another series of work I viewed at the Baltic was the Disappearance at sea - Mare Nostrum Exhibition, this was a group exhibition with the aims to draw attention to the journey undertaken by migrants and refugees to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

The actual name of the exhibition “Mare Nostrum”, literally translates to “Our Sea” and is the Latin name for the Mediterranean.

I really enjoyed this exhibition it had a lot of pieces and features that were interactive with the audience, for example a VR (virtual reality) head set that allowed you to see through the eyes of these people, walk amongst them and witness some of their journey, by walking around a set-up of different areas each of which once stood on would start a different story.

I think this was a really interesting way to get people involved with the exhibition and it does work very well, it was a good way to start the exhibition and peaked our interest for the rest of the work.

My favourite pieces of work were the video of the water and the large scale light box photographs on the wall and floor that went together. They went together with headphone and recorded sound of being underwater, this really added to the effect of the experience of travelling over sea. I believe it was a very effective way to put us into that situation.

Overall I think it was a really interesting concept to have an photography and art exhibition about, it worked really well, it was interactive with the audience and did peak my interest into the subject of refugees and migrants.

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(S)he exhibition - Laing Gallery, Newcastle 

The aims of this exhibition is to voice, map and investigate the presence of women in the Hatton Gallery Collection. This combination of photography and art work is designed to spark a discussion on the roles played by women in the wider art narrative.

“There was a conscious choice made to include both male and female artists in a dialogue with each other, to draw connections between genders despite the seeming absent female component” - https://laingartgallery.org.uk/whats-on/s-he

I enjoy that they have shown equality between male and female artists with this exhibition, it’s a nice change of pace to other exhibitions that usually focus on one or the other but they have also found work that compliments each other even in the small gallery space.

The only downside to this exhibition for me would be the fact it is in a small gallery space, I think that a lot more work should have been included with photography such as work like Barbra Kruger (even though I know it is difficult to put together exhibitions I still feel like a more female presence was needed).

I believe that a lot of the quotes and photography displayed does work the way it was intended to, it does make me consider how often we see the work of female artists appreciated and in the art world.

I think that, the way the exhibition is interactive as well allows the audience to leave feedback, comments, and even opinions on the discussion with the work (via post it notes).

Overall this is a good exhibition, it is definitely gone well for the fact it aimed to start discussions  and get people engaged with the work and subject of the exhibition. Although I feel like more could have been presented and discussed, it is overall an interesting exhibition.

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21.03.17 

Side Gallery - Newcastle 

Murray Ballard: 

The second exhibition at the Side Gallery in Newcastle that I visited was “The Prospect of Immortality” by Murray Ballard.

“Clearly the freezer is more attractive than the grave” Robert C.W. Ettinger – this quote was the start of a paragraph explaining the exhibition at the Side Gallery. From this I clearly understood what the work would be documenting through photography.

This exhibition followed the ideals and prospects of cryonics, the process of freezing a human body after death in the hope that scientific advances might one day restore them. It is quite a macabre subject to try and photography never mind doing so as successfully as Ballard has done so.

His photographic investigation took place between 2006 and 2016, from the inspiration of the practice by Ettinger (of which his series is named after Ettinger’s books). During this time, Ballard journeyed through the small but dedicated international community of cryonics, from English seaside retirement facilities of Peacehaven trough to the high tech laboratories of Arizona and even to the rudimentary facilities of KrioRus on the outskirts of Moscow.

His series combines photographs of the technical processes involved for cryonics alongside portraits of the people engaged with the quest to overcome the “problem of death”.

I think this is a very interesting project that Ballard took on and in my own opinion he did it so amazingly, the images tell the story of the process and the people but are so unbiased and elegant in the way they are photographed.

One image that I found most interesting was that of a wall of photographs entitled “Portraits of some of the patients currently held in cyrostasis” this was a very haunting image in a way because it appears that the portraits of the patients are that of family photographs. Ones that family members would have donated so that their relative’s identities are not forgotten. One even includes a pet, a dog.  

For me this is very sad in a way, trying to keep their family members in some way alive or with the hope that one day they might be alive again is very worrying. I feel like it’s a sense of not moving on and a process of still grieving even if it was the patients themselves that wanted to be frozen, it is still something that cannot be easy to deal with.

I find it very interesting and that it could work well for the essay question I have chosen “how have aspects of family photographs been used and transformed by contemporary artists and photographers” this image taken by Ballard could be something I discuss in how family photographs can be used.

Overall the exhibition was very interesting and successful to me, the entire project that Ballard spent ten years working on is very interesting itself looking at how people deal with “escaping” death in a sense. I really enjoyed the exhibition and the work that was on display there, the images were very captivating and worked well to tell and unbiased narrative of the subject.

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21.03.17 

Side Gallery - Newcastle. 

Liz Hingley: 

The first exhibition that I viewed at the side gallery was “Under Gods” by Liz Hingley. The reason I wanted to see this exhibition is because I find photography work based around religion very interesting as a topic/subject and is something I have considered looking into before since I’m an atheist brought up by Christian parents and grandparents, it would be interesting to explore different religions further with my photography work.

Hingley’s work explored and investigated the growth of urban “multi-faith” communities and complex issues around immigration and religious revival.

Hingley photographed along a two mile stretch of Soho road (between 2007 and 2009) in Birmingham where religion has become the defining factor rather than culture and race. She documented and celebrated the rich diversity of religions that co-exist in the area and their different lifestyles.  To do this she lived with and visited the different religious communities.

From doing so Hingley captured some remarkable photographs of these people in their everyday life, all the images are so stunning and poetic. One of my favourite images is “bedtime bible reading” and shows a priests daughter reading the bible by a window.

The lighting in this image and composition give some resemblance to that of religious paintings, there seems to be some sort of inspiration taken from that with some of Hingley’s photographs in this series.

Another favourite for the use of composition and lighting is “King James Audio Bible” here there is a large bible laid open on the sofa with light from the window behind beaming down on it. Again there are very many links to religious paintings that could be referenced for this image, all from the use of natural lighting. That and the symmetry used as well with plant at either side of the sofa, and the amount of light coming through the window.

Hingley’s work is very beautiful and captures religion in a peaceful, balanced, normal way of which we don’t see often because of the way the media portrays and depicts everything about religion to the wars going on in the world, it tends to ignore how peaceful most religions actually are.

This exhibition, in my opinion was very successful and I really enjoyed viewing the work. The only downside to the exhibition I think was that it is a very small space and there was so much work to look at, it appeared to be a bit cramped into one area.

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21.03.17 

Holly Hendry “Wrot”

This exhibition of Holly Hendry’s “Wrot” is a completely new body of work created and produced for the Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art. She used materials such as Jesmonite, plaster, foam, wood, steel and water-jet cut marble.

What Hendry created was a geology of oozy formed with comic elements, her work investigates the underneath and backsides of things, using cross-section cuts to reveal the innards. The pastel, sugary colours and cartoon content explore the very human aspects of laughter and death.

The title of the exhibition is interesting and I think it relates to the suggestion of human form and biology, through the shape and colours used. However, the term “Wrot” refers to timber with one or more sides smooth. And it also relates to decay or breakdown of things happening beneath the surface. In a way this does link back to what I said about it relating to human form, it could symbolise the human form breaking down.

Hendry’s work relies on the architecture of the gallery as framework. They connect to it, as Hendry states, with “spatial ligaments, like necklace to neck”

Hendry’s interested in the architectural qualities of the human body is also reflected and explored within this work. She considers our attempts through medical science, to arrest its inevitable decline.

Overall I think it is an interesting installation, the scale of it made me get closer to it and inspect it further, I wanted to see all of it. I think it works very well in the space it was constructed in, and that it does address some of the concept that Holly Hendry was thinking of. I can clearly see its relation and inspiration from the human form and the breakdown of life itself.

In most ways this is a very successful piece of work however I believe that it’s confusing to understand without reading the information provided.

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21.03.17

The Rodney Graham exhibition “That’s Not Me” at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art was very interesting and insightful for seeing how other artists have explored different methods.

Graham’s work shows that he has explored many disciplines such as photography, performance, film, music and painting. Each aspect of his work is very interesting, however it was his photography work of which I preferred.

This exhibition spanned across levels 3 and 4 in the Baltic and showed examples of the different disciplines Graham explored.

His photography work was across the 3rd level. The photographic lightboxes ranged in monumental sizes, some simply life size and other’s almost covering entire wall space. It was this scale that was most eye catching with Graham’s images, it was definitely the first thing I noticed anyway.

However, what I enjoy most from Graham’s photography work is the construction of those images, the attention to detail in them and the possible narratives within them, considering they all consist of a lone Rodney Graham playing the roles of the characters in his work.

The way that he uses lighting is very interesting, lighting up certain parts of the image more than the others to change or control the point of focus. It’s an interesting technique and works well for Graham’s work because it adds to that sense of construction, the idea that it’s staged etc.

In many ways Graham’s work reminds me that of Gregory Crewdson’s, not just because of the fact they both highly construct their images (in different ways) but also for the way they use lighting. In similar ways they use lighting to draw attention from one part of the picture to the next, they also use it to add tension and atmosphere for their images – again in different ways but it is still very similar.

Other than Graham’s photography work, I also saw a few of his video pieces as well. It was interesting to see that they linked up to his photography work in small ways, for example, in one video there features a sink over flowing and then in one of his images is the same sink from that video.

I also believe there are some small connections between his photographs, for example in  “Smoke Break 2 (drywall)” it gives me the impression that it could simply be him setting up one of his sets for another image to be constructed – like the preparation work for another image. However I know that Graham actually created the image with the exploration of the painterly aspects of everyday life, preparing drywall and its relationship to abstract painting.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition and the work by Rodney Graham and the humour behind those constructed images.  I think it was a successful exhibition and inspired me for my Self Negotiated project as I am constructing images in my own way, in the style of film stills and having Rodney Graham’s work as research is very helpful.

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PVD 223                                                                                                 17.03.17

Photography and Critical Theory:

Jim Jocoy – San Francisco Punk

After going to the Punk Exhibition (at the museum and winter gardens) and seeing some, although little, interesting pieces of photography work from Britain during the 1970’s punk era, I wanted to know more about it but more of what was going on in America and their punk ear since that’s one of the places the music developed (other than Britain and Australia).

The term “punk” was actually first used in relation to rock music by a group of American Critics in the early 1970’s, it was used to describe garage bands.

I stumbled across an article about Jim Jocoy and the photographs of the punk culture he captured as an amateur photographer in American 1970’s. I found these images to be more snapshots than anything else but, very sentimental as well. Sentimental in the sense of youth and rebellion, the way our culture changes with music.

And Jocoy’s images are very important for the history of this culture, seeing how the people changed and developed because of the music at the time being new and different is very interesting.

Punk today is more of a fad, or fashion, the punk music scene isn’t as alive as it used to be (well not in Britain anyway). But it’s important to see the youths of this generation.

Although his images at this point are classed as more amateur and “snapshot”, they were still featured within his first book “We’re Desperate” (2002) and went on to develop his photography work and lead to another book coming out at the end of March, “Order of Appearance.

“The book’s images exude all the vivid mayhem of the punk era: a lemon-yellow car teeters upside-down on a roadside, the black wall above a urinal bears loud, capitalised graffiti scratched into its surface, a girl in a short leopard-print dress reclines with cat-like languor across a car boot, her legs draped over the windscreen. But there are also softer, tenderer shots – a group of friends piled into to a cramped car, grinning with anticipation of arrival; a pair of bruised knees (Muriel’s, the title tells us) revealed beneath a patterned dress. “ - http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9645/behind-the-scenes-of-san-franciscos-punk-heyday

From these images we see a contrast between what we thought punk was like, the chaotic, mayhem of angry teenagers to see that through this music people created strong bonds and friendship, they found people that thought and felt the same way they did, they found people they belonged with. And Jim Jocoy’s images capture these contrasts, beautifully. 

“I went out in pursuit of beauty in the context of what most people would consider ugly,” Jocoy explains. - http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9645/behind-the-scenes-of-san-franciscos-punk-heyday

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02.02.17

The pros and cons of the work produced by Diane Arbus.

Group activity. 

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02.02.17 

Walker Evan’s notes typed up.

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02.02.17

Lecture Notes, typed up and opinions added.

Lee Friedlander