MA Photography Exhibition 2009
Sir John Cass School of Art, Media and Design
Graduating Students (Full-Time and Part-Time)
David George (Room 305)
Enclosures, Badlands and Borders
Archival Giclee prints, float-mounted and framed (85 x
85cm)
These photographs examine the existence of “The Sublime”
in the western post-industrial landscape. They explore
how these terrains posses a physical and intellectual
exclusivity for a general observer and how, due to the
nature of the industries that create and maintain them,
they have a built-in obsolescence. I hope the production
of these images has not only extended my own
understanding of the evolution and topography of these
landscapes, but also will facilitate a greater
appreciation of these very particular areas of industry
by a larger audience. In the foreseeable future most of
these places will no longer exist in their present form,
due to shifts in global economies, changing labour
forces, a “greener” awareness in society and the
emergence of new technologies in industry. This may be
one of the few intentional records that documents not
only their existence, but also the strange uniqueness of
these disappearing environments.
These images have essentially grown out of a long
interest in the representation of man-altered landscapes,
especially those produced by the new topographic school
in America, such as Edward Ruscha’s “Twenty-six Gasoline
Stations“ (1962), the work of Henry Wessel and the
Bechers, and subsequently the work of Joel Sternfeld and
J. Bennet Fitts. Although my concerns for the landscape
are different, I hope the images I have produced will
have the same critical eye and sense of objectivity as
these earlier works whilst containing other layers of
meaning that are both personal, political and to a degree
anthropological. In the tradition of the new topographic
photographers, there is a sense in which this work could
be viewed as a criticism of the industrial west and it’s
destruction of the environment, but ultimately the images
are intended as a benign consideration of places that are
“of their time” and that time has now, effectively, run
out. Ultimately, I see the work as a return to a “classic
landscape” containing not only elements of the sublime
but also modern references relating to the decline of
manufacturing and industry in the post-industrial west.
Seong Hee Jo (Room305)
Invisible Cities
Lambda prints, float-mounted and framed (150 x 400cm)
This project is placed in the context of urban night
photography. In the early 1900s Alfred Stieglitz
pioneered an aesthetic approach to urban photography when
he showed that cityscapes could have an imaginative
value. Today, new types of media, such as video, pose a
challenge to architectural photography. My work aims to
show that photography competes successfully with these
media, especially if efforts are made to capture the life
that surrounds a building.
This project is an experiment to produce an imaginary
'panorama' of high-rise buildings and other urban
features seen by night, using the technique of collage.
The pictures each consist of three images tightly
juxtaposed in one frame. My idea of a panoramic
impression furnished by triple images referenced
McLuhan's philosophy regarding the extension of vision.
By joining images, you transcend the need to read them
sequentially. Hilliard and Scott McFarland also
‘compressed’ time into single images. The result also
carries an element of voyeurism.
Ulka Karandikar (Room302)
Halls
‘C’ type prints mounted onto dibond (102 x 153cm)
The series ‘Halls’ consists of large-scale colour
photographs of individual rooms taken within a student
‘hall of residence’. All the photographs are taken from
the same vantage point, with the door as a frame. The
work explores the objects that people surround themselves
with to consciously and subconsciously fashion identity
at this transitional stage of life - between childhood
and adulthood.
Saturated in consumer culture the occupants of each room
have fashioned a space in which their identity is on
show. Adorned with posters, magazine cuttings, books and
the paraphernalia of the everyday, the rooms are
portraits of each individual in a time of change. Closer
inspection of each room reveals this transition more
acutely, the photographs of family and childhood on the
wall, bed linen from home coupled with makeup,
contraceptives and maps to navigate independence in an
unknown city. This identity in flux extends from personal
to global, various flags and political causes are
represented, and in a modern age of global communication
what is needed is, at the very least, is a show of global
cultural and political awareness.
The occupants of each room are not present to be
photographed, when they are seen it is via a photograph
on the wall. The physical person is not important. These
media-savvy occupants know the pitfalls of
representation, and instead it is image that is all. They
have knowingly edited photographs of themselves and their
lives and placed them within these multi-faceted selfportraits.
Alex S Kliszynski (Room305)
My Luxuria 12, 13 & 14
Lambda prints (70x100cm, edition of 10)
Instant gratification – sorry, you missed it. The itch
you cannot scratch; jack it up and jack it off, but the
hole is never filled. Paper your walls with plastic
perfection. Live by numbers and play by the rules; Mars
is Mars after all.
Put a painting in the attic and carve your Galatea. Make
an object of desire so it can live forever; keep it safe
beneath the bed.
Ju-Young Park (Room302)
Stepping into the Mirror
Lambda prints float-mounted and framed (84 x 64cm)
The ultimate inspiration for my work was a personal drive
to share my faith with others. I wanted to recreate
contemporary biblical images, finding their inner
meaning. Even though I chose my project as an expression
of my belief, I wished to stretch the theme beyond a
personal confession of faith, conveying the contemporary
meaning of the stories and enabling their reading in a
universal context.
As I progressed, I realised my work was concerned with
the telling of my own personal story so I decided to
convey the meaning through a series of multiple self-
portraits. I would say my aim in this project is to
communicate my sentiments with other people, or to
transform my internal monologue into a dialogue, as it
were.
Fiona Yaron-Field (Room305)
Beyond The Wall – Portraits of Israeli and Palestinian
men
‘C’ type prints dry mounted onto foamex, (80 x 65cm)
These portraits are of Israeli and Palestinian men,
people in conflict. The men are shown standing, facing
the camera, against a wall. The wall is a reference to
the actual wall of separation. We build walls around
ourselves to protect and resist another. These walls are
a temporary and often unsatisfactory solution leaving us
with feelings of alienation and abandonment. When we
recognise our true selves in a non-defensive position we
will also recognise ‘the other’ standing facing us and
see them as they truly are.
Fiona Yaron-Field (Unit 2 Gallery)
The Cabinet
‘C’ type prints (23 x 23cm)
Unit 2 Gallery
These images were inspired by a therapy technique called
‘Sandtray’. In Sandtray a collection of miniature objects
representing the world, both physical and spiritual, are
used to make pictures in a sand box. The client is
invited to spontaneously select objects from the
collection and place them together to create images.
These images are then explored in the therapeutic setting
and act as tools to uncover unconscious thoughts and
feelings. My unplanned photographs are made in a similar
manner using the ‘collection’ and in following some
unconscious process these images have come together. In
the way that the images of our dreams appear before us
when we sleep or how children bring life to their toys
when they play, all become metaphors for the inner world.
Meaning changes over time and with each different viewer.
MA Photography
Part-time mode year 1 (Work in Progress)
Emma Jane Brennan (Room 412)
Lost and Found
‘C’ type and Giclee prints (8 x 5 cm)
An exploration of the beauty in the everyday.
The stories of overlooked objects - the displaced, the
misplaced and the commonplace.
Kasia Kosaka (Room412)
100 miles from Tokyo
‘C’ type prints (40 x 30cm)
and
The fear I have inside me
‘C’ type prints (36 x 36cm) mounted onto foamex,
aluminium batons
I exploit photography as a medium for telling stories.
The stories are not based on real events but things that
might possibly happen. I use my narrative sequences as a
universal language to express those feelings that are
often unconscious – the dark side which we human beings
run away from – but the side which comes out during bad
dreams or vivid moments of our lives when we allow
ourselves to be connected with the fear, anxiety and
sadness that we all carry inside us. By articulating
imaginative but threatening situations I want to push the
boundaries of our sense of security we tend to
comfortably sink into.
Hannah Richardson
(Room 412)
Van Dyke Brown prints dry mounted onto foamex (9 x 6cm)
I met him one night when I was dancing in the city of
disguises. He promised me the world and more and gave me
nothing but bruises and insecurity. We travelled for two
years, until I stole his watch. But it was no use to me,
for in this dark enamoured place anything is possible.
Time stops. The laws of the real world are suspended.
I lost all the possessions in my life, including the
amber necklace my mother left me on her deathbed; I have
nothing. I gambled the necklace for his heart.
The above is an extract from the diary of the girl in the
photographs. This is the initial stage of a larger
narrative made up of a series of playing cards. The
voices of two characters; the girl in the image and the
absent man who is referred to in the diary extract are
printed onto the cards. The voices are quotes from
Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, a tale about gambling
and fate. The images are placed in a random order to
suggest that the quotes have been shuffled like a deck of
playing cards and to demonstrate the way in which the
lives of the two characters are bought together by
chance.
Spencer Rowell (Foyer Gallery)
Memories of Childhood 1963-1965
Archival Giclee prints, framed (127 x 81cm work in
progress 2009)
Inspired and intrigued as to how past experiences impact
on our lives in the present and how the past informs our
view of the world.
Last Day at Work 2009 (Unit 2 Gallery)
Archival Giclee print, framed with etched glass
82cm, limited edition)
(170 x
On July 22nd 2005 at 09.24 Juan-Charles de Menezes began
his last journey from his home in Scotia Rd to Stockwell
tube station.
These are the cameras that Juan-Charles passed on his
last journey,
Jean Charles was shot eight times by armed police at
10:07
Cuban Lady (Unit 2 Gallery)
‘C’ type print dry mounted onto aluminium (76 x 76cm,
limited edition)
Redemption 2009 (Room 412)
Contact printed negatives onto silver gelatine paper,
sepia and selenium toned, framed (89 x 71cm, limited
edition)
Cause and effect. Two letters from the past brought
together and archived as a portrait/document. A damaged
man is confronted by his past behaviour, the anger and
self pity remain intact.