Abi Rayner Photography (2)

“This photographic assignment requires you to consider the suffix ism celebrated as the word of 2015 by Merriam-Webster, the online American dictionary website.
An article written by Alison Flood for the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday 16th December 2015 reported on the most popular words searched for in 2015 using Merriam-Websterʼs site: “Socialism” was the most looked-up word on Merriam-Websterʼs site this year (2015), a change the American dictionary publisher attributes to US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has positioned of himself as a “democratic socialist”. Last year (2014), “culture” was the dictionaryʼs top word; this year, socialism sparked “intense” curiosity, with an increase of 169% in look-ups compared to 2014, according to the dictionary. “Socialism has been near the top of our online dictionary look-up list for several years,” said editor-at-large Peter Sokolowsk. “However, this year look-ups for socialism moved up even further, beginning with the July campaign events for Bernie Sanders, remaining high throughout the following months and spiking again after the first Democratic debate in October.”

 Merriam-Webster said that the fact that Sanders has embraced socialism “shows the term has moved beyond its cold war associations”. It has now included new information in its dictionary entry for the term, writing: “In the modern era, ʻpureʼ socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as ʻdemocratic socialismʼ, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.”

Socialism is not the dictionaryʼs word of the year, though – that honour goes for the first time to a suffix, “ism”, reflecting the fact that many of Merriam-Websterʼs most looked-up words in 2015 ended in “ism”. These include “fascism” – which saw a spike in look-ups following Donald Trumpʼs remarks about banning Muslims from entering the US – and “terrorism”, looked up frequently following the Paris, Colorado Springs and San Bernardino attacks. “In November,” said the dictionary, “some conservatives began using ʻfascistʼ to describe Trumpʼs proposals and style, and at the beginning of December, writers for Slate and the New York Times and a commentator on CNN all referred to Trump as a fascist, sending many people to the dictionary.” “Racism” look-ups increased by 50% over last year, prompted by the South Carolina church shooting, the University of Missouri protests and incidents of police violence, while “feminism” also saw a spike in searches thanks to “Amy Schumerʼs success, Hillary Clintonʼs candidacy and coverage of Caitlyn Jennerʼs story”. Two more -isms – “communism” and “capitalism” – complete a list of seven words that represent “millions of individual look-ups” over the last year.

 A suffix is a letter or group of letters added at the end of a word which makes a new word. The new word is most often a different word class from the original word. A suffix can change verbs to adjectives and change verbs to nouns. For example, the word social is an adjective (a word that describes a noun or pronoun), but socialism is a noun (a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality).

We would like you to use the suffix of …ism using the article by Alison Flood as inspiration to develop an idea or set of ideas as a prompt for creating a new set of images. We expect you to conduct and record the development of your ideas in a visual research journal along with supplementary research relevant to your ideas and practice. Using any technologies associated with photography you are open to explore the assignment. The final results of the experiment are to be presented as a sequence of images in a publication this could take the form of a zine, self-made book or print-on demand book. Attention to layout and sequencing of images and complimentary text is paramount in how the idea(s) will be received. Careful consideration of sequencing images is equally important. Consider the various from of sequencing available i.e. linear/nonlinear narrative, sequential, serial and taxonomic. How might they enhance the idea(s) being enunciated?”

Continue reading “Photo Book Assignment: …ism”

guerrilla /ɡəˈrɪlə/ noun
referring to actions or activities performed in an impromptu way, often without authorization.

“Over the last few decades the word guerrilla has been gentrified in the West as a process of executing an unusual or unexpected activity in a common everyday place in order to generate a gentle disruption of peopleʼs daily routines, patterns or experiences. We would like you as a community of photographers to locate, design and produce a pop-up display of your photography work for viewing by Thursdayʼs workshop in week nine of Semester B. We require this to be a group activity in deciding location(s) but the design and production can be conducted as an individual performance. You should initial meet up as a group and agree a group structure and designate tasks to appropriate members of the group.

The photography work you choose to display can be from an existing portfolio of images from either semester or can be generated from new work. The assessment criteria for this assignment emphasises the presentation and the appropriate consideration of space, material in relation to theme of your work. We encourage you to adopt an experimental approach to this task of display your work, finding an original and novels approach is part of the disruptive process and an important part of the assessment. Experimentation can only be achieved from a broad knowledge of your subject, there it is essential to conduct research on past photographic and art exhibitions in order to achieve an effective outcome.”

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Research

As recommended in the brief, the first thing I looked at for research was the blog Guerilla Exhibition.

Guerilla Exhibitions, (twitter|tumblr) is a group that organises pop up photo exhibitions. The exhibitions are often announced with very short notice, and up for a limited time, such as less than a day. By looking at Guerilla Exhibitions, I was able to get an idea of what the brief expected from us, and could begin formulating plans.

Another thing I noticed when looking at the photos from Guerilla Exhibitions was the method of presentation. Often, the photo prints were simply presented on a wall, sans frames or borders. However, in one photo I noticed that the photos were put up with duct tape, which matched the industrial and run down feel of the location that the photos were being displayed in. I noted this as a non standard presentation method.

From here, I started to research some other examples of pop up exhibitions.

The People’s Gallery – tale of a pop-up exhibition

The first exhibition I found was The People’s Gallery, a pop up photo exhibit that featured photographs from the Hull Daily Mail’s archives. The exhibit, held from 11th-15th September 2013,  was visited by around 12,000 people.

The thing that I was most interested in when researching The People’s Gallery, is that the appeal about the exhibition wasn’t particularly the photography or the presentation, but instead about invoking a connection and emotional response from the viewers.

Angus Young, the organiser of the event, stated “The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I was there for most of the four day. Just seeing total strangers sharing memories and pointing out familiar faces and places gave me a real buzz. My personal highlight came when an elderly lady called Audrey Thompson saw her younger self in one of the blown-up photographs we had stuck on the floor.” [.]

Young also stated that there are multiple uses for hosting a pop up exhibition over a permanently installed one, ranging from being able to transport the exhibition easily to being able to set it up in memory clinics for dementia patients.

#snapCNY

The next pop up exhibition I found out about was #snapCNY, an exhibit arranged to celebrate Chinese New Year in London 2016.

The festival used a novel way to source photos for the exhibition, by hosting an online competition. Participants would enter the competition by uploading their photo entry to Instagram and tagging it with #snapCNY. Eight photos were then selected to be displayed in the exhibition.

“This exciting one-of-a-kind exhibition not only displays members of the public’s take on CNY, but also offers an insight in to the symbolism and tradition behind the festival.” [.]

No Man’s Art Gallery

Instead of focusing on photography, No Man’s Art Galley is an art exhibition, but still uses the same concepts of pop up exhibitions. It hosts a new exhibition every few months, in various cities around the world.

The exhibitions themselves can be seen as an art piece, as they challenge social and economic constructs, and is especially made for young artists.

“NMAG aims to democratize the global art market for young artists. We place artworks outside of the cultural and economic context in which they were created to make the artist’s chance at professional survival less dependent on the local art market. Instead we take them onto the global market and level the playing field amongst young artists worldwide.” [.]

[.]

After I had researched into photo exhibitions, I browsed the internet to find some unique ways of displaying photographs.

By looking at these different examples, I was able to start brainstorming creative presentation methods, rather than just placing photos on a wall.

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Group Work

For this project, we had to work in groups. I was part of a small group with two other members, Vicky and Josh. Together we came up with the idea of creating an Alice in Wonderland themed exhibition. Initially Vicky’s idea, I was eager to partake in this theme, as I come from the same town that Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, lived and died in, Guildford. Due to this, I had access to a lot of buildings and statues related to Lewis Carroll.

We also decided on a location for our exhibition together. At first, we thought of some of the independent cafés in Lincoln, such as Madame Waffle, which has décor which would match our theme. However, we instead opted to set up in an outdoor location, as this was much more of a Guerrilla theme, impromptu and unauthorised.

As a group we went to Lincoln Arboretum, and agreed on using it as the location for our exhibit, due to both the abundance of nature, and the Victorian aspect of the Arboretum. We found a small pond, with a fountain, and a walkway around the pond, and agreed to set up our exhibitions there.

For our photo ideas, Josh chose to focus on abstract nature, reflecting the surreal plants and other things that feature in the Alice in Wonderland story. Vicky chose to represent the theme with portrait photography, with a fantasy theme, and I chose to depict architecture and nature, with the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. We also agreed to all have our own exhibitions in our own area, but to create a wall of a few of our photos altogether. We also thought of overlaying keyhole shaped frames over the top of them.

Each of us came up with our own take on the theme. Vicky chose to have her photos shown in various sized frames, to represent the looking glass in the second Alice novel. Josh chose to have his photos printed onto the back of playing cards, to fit in with the Queen of Hearts and other card related characters, and I chose to display my photos with bottles, to represent the “Drink Me” bottles that Alice finds. We chose to display our photos like this to create a unique and memorable exhibition, something more creative than just putting photos on a wall. We also agreed as a group to get a few photos printed onto cakes, to imitate the “eat me” cakes in Alice and Wonderland, and as a novel way to show our images.

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My Photography

For my photos, I headed back to my hometown, Guildford, as it is the same town where Lewis Carroll lived and died. I spent the first day back going around my town, taking photos of various buildings that inspired Carroll, as well as some of the statues of Alice in my town. The buildings I focused on were Guildford Castle, Abbott’s Hospital, where Carroll gave some lectures, and the two statues of Alice in my town. I ended my day by visiting Lewis Carroll’s grave.

On my second day, I visited RHS Wisley Gardens, some large gardens near where I live. Here I aimed to take photos of unique plants and flowers, hoping to get an abstract and whimsical feel.

I used both my regular DSLR camera and my polaroid camera to take photos. The reason for the polaroid being that I wanted a more unique, candid way of showing photos, and due to their small size, could be incorporated into my bottle idea easily.

Once I had taken all of my photos, I edited most of them, to give them a more enchanted and whimsical feel. I made almost every photo black and white, particularly the macro shots of flowers and the photos of architecture, as they showed off the various textures and tones in a way I was extremely happy with, which wasn’t obvious beforehand. The only exceptions to this where were the colours in the original image were so bright, unusual or vibrant, that it would have compromised either the quality or the theme of the image.

Once I had edited my images, I reduced them to the 17 that I wanted to use for my exhibition. Most of the photos I chose were my favourite ones, although there were a few photos that I really liked that I didn’t pick, as I didn’t think they fitted in well with the overall themes, or the other photos.

Once I had chosen the images I wanted to use, I thought about my theme. I kept the bottles purely for my polaroids.

For my other photos, I chose three images as my main photos, the ones we would use on the collaborative wall. I then made my main exhibition into the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with a bouquet of flowers as the centrepiece, aiming to place my photos of nature/flowers into the bouquet. For my remaining six images, mainly of architecture, I wanted to print them at around A5 size, and attach them to plates.

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Final Photos

The Main Images, for the Keyhole Wall

The photo of Alice Through the Looking Glass is one I chose as it is immediately recognisable. In making it black and white, I was able to really bring out the textures of the statue, including the sheen on the looking glass, making it look more like it is an actual mirror, instead of just glass.

I chose this particular picture of the castle to be in colour, due to the multicoloured pansies in the foreground. Without the colour, the image would fall flat. I chose to feature the castle as a main image, as it is one of the only colour images, and fits in with the remaining main image I chose.

For my final main piece, I chose my other colour photo, the one of the multicoloured forest. Again, I didn’t make this image black and white, as the variations in bright colours were so intense, it would be wasted in black and white.

The A5 Images, for the Tea Party

 

Here I chose to show an alternate view of the Looking Glass statue, one where Alice is looking at the castle through the mirror. I framed it like this in order to show her reaching through the mirror to the castle, to add to the fantasy and whimsical feel of the exhibition.

For my photo of this statue, I utilised a shallow depth of field. The rabbit at the far corner is in focus, and the focus gradually diffuses as it reaches the viewer. I also wanted to capture the perspective of Alice looking at the rabbit.

I chose to show the butterfly, again as an example of a fantasy world. By making the image black and white, the butterfly’s wings can stand out, and the texture of the tree can be emphasised.

Here I showed two more views of the castle, again with the colours arranged to emphasise tones and textures. One photo shows the gardens in detail, whereas the other one is framed by a circular fence.

Finally, I showed the grave of Lewis Carroll, both as a homage to the man, and also as an end to the minor story I was showing through my photos, which explored the town he lived in. I chose the closely cropped image, which showed the poignant Biblical quote, but also the peaceful aspect of Carroll’s death.

Small Photos, for the Photo Bouquet

For the photo bouquet, I chose detailed and abstract images of nature, to create an abstract and surreal feel to my bouquet. I edited all of the images to black and white, to emphasise texture, apart from one, of the purple and red twigs, as the colours were too vibrant. I chose to place the solitary colour image amongst the black and white ones in my bouquet, to stand out.

Photos for Cakes

For the photos that will be attached to the cake toppers, I chose two small, but clear images, so they could be clearly seen when converted into edible paper. For these, I chose square cropped photos of a hibiscus flower and a butterfly.

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Presentation/Exhibition

For the actual presentation, my group realised that we lacked the full resources to make the collaborative keyhole wall, and so instead opted to not make a collaborative piece, but instead have each person’s exhibition lead into the next one.

I acquired nine bottles of various shapes and sizes, for my polaroid labels. For the actual labels, I got large brown gift tags, and carefully cut a small window in nine of them, big enough to show a polaroid. I then sandwiched the polaroid photo between the windowed label and a complete one, and glued them all together, to create one full label. I did this for each polaroid, and wrote my name, the date and the exhibition details on the back. I then attached each label to a bottle, and put a different flower in each bottle, to create a surreal but fun feel, similar to the tea party in Alice in Wonderland.

 

 

For each of my other images, once they were printed out on high quality paper, I glued them to cardboard, and cut each one with a guillotine to ensure they were perfectly straight. I added the cardboard to them to make them more sturdy, which was particularly needed for the flower bouquet.

For the bouquet, I arranged various flowers into a vase. The flowers I chose were typical springtime flowers, large pink lillies, purple tulips, daffodils, pink roses and purple irises. I chose these flowers for their fun and vibrant colour scheme, and to match the March Hare character, who is described as silly and loud. I attached my photos into the bouquet using crocodile clips.

For the picnic plates, I simply stuck the photos to the plates with blu-tac. I chose bright blue plates to stand out against my pink picnic blanket, and also to add to the surreal theme I had so far created. I put rocks in the space between the photos and the plates to ensure they would not blow away in the wind.

For the cakes, I rolled out white icing onto fairy cakes. Unfortunately, the photo cake toppers did not arrive in time, so we could not display our photos that way.

As well as the preparation for our photos, I designed a poster for our exhibition, to give context and also advertise our exhibition.

I used a photo that I had taken to get the image of the rabbit, which I then edited heavily to fit my poster.

 

In addition to this, I created tags for each image at the picnic, with a quote from Alice in Wonderland on. I did this partly as a title for the image, and partly as a quote to provoke thought.

I also took presentation into account when setting up the exhibit. I used blu-tac to secure my main image to a tree, opposite my main exhibit, so that whichever way someone walked through, they would immediately see at least one part of my exhibit. I then placed my bottles along the wall around the pond, to create a path that led to the next area of the exhibition.

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Evaluation of the Exhibition

Overall, I believe our exhibition went very well. Although we could not plan this, the weather was very sunny, which emphasised my exhibit in particular, due to all the bright colours I used.

We had many guests walking through, who took interest in the exhibit and directly interacted with the pieces, such as walking up onto the picnic blanket to carefully look at each photo I had placed. A few people would ask us about the exhibit, to which I explained our theme and that we were a pop up photography exhibition. Overall, there was a lot of interest generated, and even those who were just passing by tended to glance at the images.

Something else that I had hoped to invoke in our exhibition, and that I believed came through well, was trying to appeal to each of the five senses. Sight was obviously covered with the photos, but I also covered taste, with the cakes, sound, with the sound of the fountain and the birds in the background, smell, with the flowers, particularly the lillies, and touch, with the soft fabric of the blanket and the velvety touch of the flower petals.

When we first set up, my exhibit led into Vicky’s very well, but Josh’s exhibit was a bit further out, so we moved his so it directly followed on from Vicky’s. This created a more cohesive loop, and allowed for continuation, for example if we were in a larger group with more exhibits, we could have curved around the whole pond.

The main problem I encountered was that it was hard to keep my main images attached to the tree, and they periodically fell off. I overcame this by constantly checking on all the photos, and using a lot of blu tac.

Another issue was, as we conducted our exhibition in an outside area, we had no control over animals enjoying the exhibit alongside humans. This led to a few occasions were dogs nearly knocked over or destroyed parts of the exhibits, but their owners stayed close enough to keep them under control.

Overall, I believe our exhibition went incredibly well. Each of our individual exhibits melded into each other cohesively, and the exhibition generated a lot of positive interest from passer bys.