Not Your Photographer’s Photographer:

A Review of Henry Wessel’s Traffic/ Sunset Park/ Continental Divide

Opening the front cover, I find myself driving through traffic on the way to work. The sun is blinding my eyes as I roll to stop at a light. A car pulls up next to me.

Grabbing a handful of pages, I flip forward to find I’ve just finished dinner. The dog wants go out for a walk and so, in a half-tired daze, I pull on my jacket to walk among the small glowing bungalows; the dog occasionally stopping to sniff under fences or bark up a tree.

Now I’m driving across the American West, but I don’t stop to gaze up in wonder at the redwoods, or the mountains, or the canyons – instead I’ve been lulled into a stupor by the radio and the winding road. I’m mesmerized by the sparse trees poking out of the landscape, and a huddle of hitchhikers who disappear into the landscape as I pass them.

Such is the wandering mood of Traffic/ Sunset Park/ Continental Divide, a re-print of photographer Henry Wessel’s work set to be released by Steidl this month. In 228 pages and 105 black and white images, we people-watch out the car window of Wessel’s daily commute in Traffic. We wander up and down residential streets, breathing in the suburban noir in Sunset Park while noticing the twisted branches of trees, and the trickling light of living rooms. Then, with renewed wonder, we get back into Wessel’s car in Continental Divide to drive across the mountains and down into the desert – this time looking out at vast stretches of road and the patterns of telephone poles.

A member of the New Topographics, Wessel is famous for his photographs of the American West which eschew emotionality in favor of a deadpan, purely topographic style.

Unlike the dramatic tonal contrasts of Ansel Adams’ mountain ranges and sweeping vistas of California redwoods, Wessel surveys his surroundings via the lineage of Walker Evans; documenting shop fronts and picket fences, while paying tribute to the significance of the mundane.

But it would be a disservice to Wessel’s work to argue that it simply flattens and distills the world into architecture and form. A heart beats beneath this critical catalogue. On an opening page, Traffic/ Sunset Park/ Continental Divide borrows a stanza from Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” to prime the reader for Wessel’s poetics of perspective:

“Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?”

Rather than reaching for lofty heights, Wessel turns his gaze on the grounded and what is already at his feet. But this book does more than collect blackbirds. Wessel’s arrangement of images provides rhythm, rhyme, and movement to his series. The images hum, repeat themselves, bump shoulders, and call out to each other; revisiting the same ideas again and again like mantras — becoming totally strange, then familiar once more. Wessel reaches out into the world and unifies it around his lens. As Stevens writes,

“A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.”

But the egalitarianism of Wessel’s gaze and his meditative tone can also serve as a barrier for his viewers. Sometimes Wessel stops the car. He stares into a landscape for what seems like forever and we stare with him, having no idea whether he’s seen something rustle in a bramble, or if the unremarkable view triggered a memory that we’ve never had. Occasionally, Wessel stays out so long under the porch lights that we shiver beneath the night breeze. Our fingers go cold. In our impatience, sometimes people in traffic are just people in traffic.

For all its poetry, the mundanity of Wessel’s photography occasionally exhausts its project; leaving the viewer to wonder if they’ve perhaps missed some central point – overlooked some key thesis of the New Topographers, or failed to pick up breadcrumbs of extra-textual reference. Wessel’s aversion to the tropes and frills of commercial photography and his renowned reputation in the art world invites him to be labeled as a “photographer’s photographer” – a term as exclusionary as the concept itself. When the democracy of his vision collapses on us in a moment of confusion we’re left to wonder whether we’ve fallen short of expectations. We wonder whether a “photographer’s photographer” believes that knowledge of the language established by Evans’ slanting sidewalks, or Eggleston’s cacophonous road signs is necessary to recognize the significance of these symbols, and to read them in the world.

Ultimately, there’s no secret decoder or cypher to hold up to Wessel’s work. Wessel’s photographic journey doesn’t unfurl into a manifesto, or a universal guidebook on how to twist the world into the fantastic. Wessel doesn’t even suggest that there is magic to be found everywhere. Instead, his photographic journey feels fundamentally personal and wholly unconcerned with whether his photographs will resonate. Henry Wessel simply leaves his house with a camera in hand and invites us to come along.

-Sasha Patkin

****

Like zen koans or visual haikus, Henry Wessel’s photography creates an archive of meditative sensations which perplex as much as they enlighten.

More information: https://steidl.de/Buecher/Traffic-Sunset-Park-Continental-Divide-0224303543.html

Not Your Photographer’s Photographer:

A Review of Henry Wessel’s Traffic/ Sunset Park/ Continental Divide

Opening the front cover, I find myself driving through traffic on the way to work. The sun is blinding my eyes as I roll to stop at a light. A car pulls up next to me.

Grabbing a handful of pages, I flip forward to find I’ve just finished dinner. The dog wants go out for a walk and so, in a half-tired daze, I pull on my jacket to walk among the small glowing bungalows; the dog occasionally stopping to sniff under fences or bark up a tree.

Now I’m driving across the American West, but I don’t stop to gaze up in wonder at the redwoods, or the mountains, or the canyons – instead I’ve been lulled into a stupor by the radio and the winding road. I’m mesmerized by the sparse trees poking out of the landscape, and a huddle of hitchhikers who disappear into the landscape as I pass them.

Such is the wandering mood of Traffic/ Sunset Park/ Continental Divide, a re-print of photographer Henry Wessel’s work set to be released by Steidl this month. In 228 pages and 105 black and white images, we people-watch out the car window of Wessel’s daily commute in Traffic. We wander up and down residential streets, breathing in the suburban noir in Sunset Park while noticing the twisted branches of trees, and the trickling light of living rooms. Then, with renewed wonder, we get back into Wessel’s car in Continental Divide to drive across the mountains and down into the desert – this time looking out at vast stretches of road and the patterns of telephone poles.

A member of the New Topographics, Wessel is famous for his photographs of the American West which eschew emotionality in favor of a deadpan, purely topographic style.

Unlike the dramatic tonal contrasts of Ansel Adams’ mountain ranges and sweeping vistas of California redwoods, Wessel surveys his surroundings via the lineage of Walker Evans; documenting shop fronts and picket fences, while paying tribute to the significance of the mundane.

But it would be a disservice to Wessel’s work to argue that it simply flattens and distills the world into architecture and form. A heart beats beneath this critical catalogue. On an opening page, Traffic/ Sunset Park/ Continental Divide borrows a stanza from Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” to prime the reader for Wessel’s poetics of perspective:

“Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?”

Rather than reaching for lofty heights, Wessel turns his gaze on the grounded and what is already at his feet. But this book does more than collect blackbirds. Wessel’s arrangement of images provides rhythm, rhyme, and movement to his series. The images hum, repeat themselves, bump shoulders, and call out to each other; revisiting the same ideas again and again like mantras — becoming totally strange, then familiar once more. Wessel reaches out into the world and unifies it around his lens. As Stevens writes,

“A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.”

But the egalitarianism of Wessel’s gaze and his meditative tone can also serve as a barrier for his viewers. Sometimes Wessel stops the car. He stares into a landscape for what seems like forever and we stare with him, having no idea whether he’s seen something rustle in a bramble, or if the unremarkable view triggered a memory that we’ve never had. Occasionally, Wessel stays out so long under the porch lights that we shiver beneath the night breeze. Our fingers go cold. In our impatience, sometimes people in traffic are just people in traffic.

For all its poetry, the mundanity of Wessel’s photography occasionally exhausts its project; leaving the viewer to wonder if they’ve perhaps missed some central point – overlooked some key thesis of the New Topographers, or failed to pick up breadcrumbs of extra-textual reference. Wessel’s aversion to the tropes and frills of commercial photography and his renowned reputation in the art world invites him to be labeled as a “photographer’s photographer” – a term as exclusionary as the concept itself. When the democracy of his vision collapses on us in a moment of confusion we’re left to wonder whether we’ve fallen short of expectations. We wonder whether a “photographer’s photographer” believes that knowledge of the language established by Evans’ slanting sidewalks, or Eggleston’s cacophonous road signs is necessary to recognize the significance of these symbols, and to read them in the world.

Ultimately, there’s no secret decoder or cypher to hold up to Wessel’s work. Wessel’s photographic journey doesn’t unfurl into a manifesto, or a universal guidebook on how to twist the world into the fantastic. Wessel doesn’t even suggest that there is magic to be found everywhere. Instead, his photographic journey feels fundamentally personal and wholly unconcerned with whether his photographs will resonate. Henry Wessel simply leaves his house with a camera in hand and invites us to come along.

-Sasha Patkin

****

Like zen koans or visual haikus, Henry Wessel’s photography creates an archive of meditative sensations which perplex as much as they enlighten.

More information: https://steidl.de/Buecher/Traffic-Sunset-Park-Continental-Divide-0224303543.html

photos by Matteo Favero

The London Photography Diary is pleased to collaborate with guest curator Stereoscope magazine at the University of St Andrews for the exhibition No Strings Attached, at Carmel by the Green in East London.  This exhibition follows The Physical Fabric of Cities—organized by London Photography Diary and Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror, curated by the New York Photography Diary—and is the third in a year-long program of shows being organized by The Photography Diaries. No Strings Attached is curated by Stereoscope magazine and the head curator for this exhibition is Ivana D’Accico.

Carmel by the Green
287a Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 0EL

Opening reception: 15 December, 6pm – 9pm
drinks provided

Exhibition dates: 15 Dec – 15 Feb

Opening times: Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm
Thursday 8am to 6pm
Saturday 10:30am to 3:30pm

NO STRINGS ATTACHED

The American artist Chris Wiley proclaimed: “It is indisputable that we now inhabit a world thoroughly mediatised by and glutted with the photographic image and its digital doppelganger. Everything and everyone on Earth and beyond, it would seem, has been slotted somewhere in a rapacious, ever-expanding Borgesian library of representation that we have built for ourselves.”

It is true that a casual, transient and less committed mindset pervades the nature of modern photography, and indeed the wider actions of the millennial generation. The phrase No Strings Attached has become a hallmark of this generation, and this exhibition explores how a flippant attitude within youth culture has translated into its relationship with the camera.  In a world where the mechanisms to capture images are so readily available, photography has become dispensable. This theme discusses the notion of whether we are less inclined to enter into a serious relationship with the medium?

Entering its sixth year as a publication, STEREOSCOPE was founded as a means to celebrate the history of photography in St. Andrews by aligning the famous Special Collections of Photography and current St. Andrews photographer’s work. Under the theme No Strings Attached the magazine has provided a platform for students in St. Andrews to showcase their work and discuss the current nature of photography.

STEREOSCOPE photographers Kate Engleman, Lallie Doyle, Lauren Santucci, Meleah Moore and Sophie Levine present five idiosyncratic approaches to the physical process surrounding contemporary photography. With settings ranging from rural Kolkata to Los Angeles, this collection of photographs demonstrates the modern romance between today’s youth and the camera.

ARTISTS

Kate Engleman

I have always been technologically inept. This may be because I just don’t understand the technological equipment, or because I choose to not learn how to use the new mediums. I have always valued film photography, shooting on my grandfather’s tempestuous Canon AE-1.

As someone who loves constant stimulation, it forces me slow down. With the incredibly clear images phones can now produce, and the endless forums that allow people to share those images instantly, the committed relationship between man and camera has become a thing of the past. My images were taken in Los Angeles, my home city, a place I have always felt very detached from. I have started to shoot more around LA, reconnecting with my city through exploring with my camera. Having recently begun to travel alone, I have found great solace in shooting film. My camera has become my favourite travel companion as it enables me way to connect with the places in a way I wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

Lauren Santucci

Photography right now is flexible—we have the luxury to experiment and be relaxed about the medium. I photograph the minor movements and brief moments that illustrate a comparable and relatable human experience. In chaining these instances together, we can remember and celebrate our humility despite the conflicts and structures that estrange and divide us. It would be difficult to distinguish the refugee from the privileged and the free in these photographs. Whichever camera I use, whether it is a clunky DLSR or a £5 disposable camera, I am shy about taking photographs of people. I take photos of the lovers or friends I feel intimate with—but I do not want them to know I am taking their photo. These photographs were taken both in my home town of Detroit and in a refugee camp in Athens where I have worked for the last year. They are casual and unplanned due to my efforts to remain unnoticed and to my treatment of photography as unforced and informal.

Meleah Moore

I was trying to add up the visual sources I have encountered today and got frustrated by the superfluity; hitting and quitting photos on my newsfeed without a second thought. The inquiry as a photographer has become how to make an image more indispensable, to warrant more than a glance. Though this idea has some irony; I photograph glances, quick encounters, short-lived beauty. I like pausing movement because something draws me in, feeding on the energy of observation. It’s the subtleties that are alluring, catching people in their element without changing it. This became my approach to my photographs taken during a period working with a sustainable energy company in Kolkata, India. I photographed moments which were brief and unaffected, but stay for a minute and they might reveal more.

Sophie Levine

This series holds its interest in the relationship between nature and the human touch, attempting to deconstruct the normalities of our everyday world. The images obscure, fragment, and isolate—allowing the viewer to assign their own narrative. I look to the medium of photography in a formal way, but am influenced by and seek to evoke a more playful sense of the bizarre. In using analogue photographic processes and originally printing these photographs myself, I was looking to explore a less dispensable and instantaneous side of the medium. The compositions were made from a bit of card and the help of a pair of scissors—no hidden strings or Photoshop. The idea of ‘No Strings Attached’ manifests in many different ways, but it is the intersection between analogue and the instantaneous that I am interested in exploring—the spontaneity of our generation applied to concentrated processes.

Lallie Doyle

I am in a deeply committed relationship with photography; a relationship that, like my other human relations has had peaks and troughs. Photography is used as a way to cement my stream of consciousness. My works, in general, are staged: they are not constructed in a callous and whimsical manner, but rather meticulously put together to recreate a pre-envisaged narrative. I photographed Brooklyn band The Britanys in Williamsburg this summer: I love to photograph musicians because I find music very visual. While music is meant for the ears, for me music is seen just as strongly through the eyes – it conjures up images of past memories, of colours, of the thrashing of limbs in a dark club to the creeping of light through the blinds in the morning. This series conveys the intersection between music and photography, because, in a post-depression era where the creative drive has become stunted by mounting student loans, it is important to unite the arts. These photographs represent my more old-fashioned relationship with the camera, one that is more carefully considered and planned, rather than the laissez-affair attitude that has come to define modern photography.

Roaming Projects’ debut exhibition Mercury is the result of a six-year photographic and anthropologic project by London-based artist Lewis Chaplin that seeks to uncover the truths and mysteries that have shaped the representation of British-occupied Tristan da Cunha. The body of Chaplin’s work demonstrates his searching for, and creating of, a history of this South Atlantic island, drawing from material that is archival, imagined, and ethnographic and provoking questions surrounding cultural memory, territory and national identity.  

Tristan da Cunha is one of the most remote islands in the world that is only accessible with permission, and the first room of the exhibition presents a series of 5 photographs (Untitled, 2016) of the island. Its inaccessibility prompted Chaplin to equip the inhabitants with disposable cameras, enabling him to pursue his anthropologic study via an ethnographic practise. This detached mode of photography echoes the physical distance between artist and island, raising questions of authenticity and agency. This array of photographs presents the viewer with a strange juxtaposition, varying from a lush green volcanic landscape, a cruise liner in the distance, and a collection of bungalows. The recognisable architecture evokes the familiar portrait of a small British town. The grey and gloomy clouds are present in each scene and provide another affinity, this time between the all too familiar English weather and that of Tristan. The combination of recognisably ‘British’ tropes with a raw volcanic landscape feels uncanny; the viewer sensing both a connection and disconnection to this strange yet familiar place. 

As the viewer moves through the exhibition they encounter the installation Group-of-men-sit-together-after-a-wedding-in-Tristan-da-Cunha (2017), where a print of a sky-blue cottage window shot in the UK hangs, printed in a large format on poster paper that scales an entire wall of the gallery space. Its colour resonates with a 4 x 6 photograph hanging on the adjacent wall. Chaplin found this image in an archive of Tristan; it depicts a doctor, who had devoted much of his time researching the island, with his back to the camera. He seems to be bending over, revealing the sky-blue wall in the background. The viewer is denied access to what this doctor looks like; we can barely get a sense of what kind of person this is. This inaccessibility echoes the denial of admission both to the island and to its history. By coupling this actual archival image of the island with a disparate yet formally similar photograph, the viewer is prompted to consider how the artist is playing with the archival role in historical and cultural memory. The photograph of the cottage in the context of this exhibition acts as an archival image and therefore is contributing to the both the real and imagined archive of Tristan da Cunha. 

The closing section of the show consists of Untitled (Horizon) (2017), a series of damaged film that forms part of the body of photographs taken by Tristan’s residents, and Untitled (Southampton) (2015), a video and sound piece that echoes throughout the exhibition space. The video is shot in low-resolution; the black and white pixelated images of the Southampton Sea alongside the broken noise of the wind hitting the microphone resonates the fragmented memory and imagination of Tristan. This simultaneously seems to evoke further Chaplin’s inaccessibility to, and physical distance from, the island, forcing the artist to produce his own archive in order to imagine Tristan. The aforementioned damaged photos intensify this continuous search as they visualise the problems of inaccessibility faced in the duration of this project. These impaired images attempt (but fail) to reveal the alien landscape of Tristan, and thus highlight the lack of visibility that the island maintains, yet their production and their placing within this exhibition aligns them with the history of Tristan and contribute to its archive. 

With Mercury, Lewis Chaplin has synthesised imagery of Tristan da Cunha, both real and imagined, to explore and create a history of the island. The exhibition explores the implications that subjectivity has on both the archive and perception of an unknown place, its people and culture. Finally, Roaming Projects are hosting Mercury in a disused rubber clothing shop in central Somers Town, a space that echoes with the same sense of Strangeness or Otherness that is prevalent within Chaplin’s artwork.

‘Mercury’ @ Roaming Gallery exhibiting until 19th February 2017 (http://www.roamingprojects.com).

 – by Alexandra Hull

Image Captions:

Installation View # 1, ‘Mercury’ © Roaming Projects Gallery
Installation View # 2, ‘Mercury’ © Roaming Projects Gallery
Installation View # 3, ‘Mercury’ © Roaming Projects Gallery
Installation View # 4, ‘Mercury’ © Roaming Projects Gallery

Alexandra Hull is currently studying an MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths and previously completed her BA in History of Art at the University of Manchester. She is a part of curatorial duo ‘g_URL’ who are collaborating with young female creatives who are working in the intersection of art and tech.  

photos by Matteo Favero

The New York Photography Diary is pleased to host its inaugural exhibition, Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror, at Carmel by the Green in East London. This exhibition follows The Physical Fabric of Cities—organized by London Photography Diary—and is the second in a year-long program of shows being organized by The Photography Diaries. Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror is curated by New York Photography Diary editors Daniel Pateman and Will Fenstermaker .  The head curator for this exhibition is Ivana D’Accico.

Inspired by the shock of Brexit in Britain and corresponding xenophobic, nativist tones in US and European politics, Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror features the work of eight international artists who responded to the set theme of Borders. Each photographer explores boundaries in the midst of a reconfiguration, provoking a reconciliation with the limits at which one defines identity, homeland, and ontological frameworks.

The exhibition title comes from a dialogue between the Venetian merchant Marco Polo and Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972) and speaks to the way communities define themselves in opposition to other people. Polo, an exile—albeit a voluntary one—tells Kublai of a peculiar sensation: the recognition of oneself in the otherness of those who live beyond the border. Coming upon daily life within an unfamiliar city, Polo recounts that “the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”

To this, Kublai responds that travel brings one into contact with one’s past, one’s possible futures, and all the presents that could have been.  “Elsewhere is a negative mirror,” Polo says. “The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering much he has not had and will never have.”

These photographs, like negative mirrors, show what is familiar in unfamiliar places. In them, one finds home in a world that has been divided into parts—conquered, nationalized, and quantified—its distinctions marked by thresholds that have only the illusion of inviolability.

“Elsewhere Is a Negative Mirror” will run from October 6th to December 13th, 2016 at Carmel by the Green, next to Bethnal Green tube station in East London. Please join us for our opening on October 6th from 6–9pm, or as part of Whitechapel’s First Thursdays in November.

Carmel by the Green
287A Cambridge Heath Road
London, E2 0EL
020 8616 5750

ARTISTS

Clement Valla

Clement Valla’s “Postcards from Google Earth” depict moments where Google’s two-dimensional imaging software has misaligned with the three-dimensional mapping software, marking a boundary between actual and representational nature. “These images are not glitches,” Valla says. “They are an edge condition… They reveal a new model of representation: not through indexical photographs but through automated data collection from a myriad of different sources constantly updated and endlessly combined to create a seamless illusion.”

Clement Valla (based in Brooklyn, NY) works with computer-based picture-producing apparatuses, and how they transform representation and ways of seeing. His work has been exhibited at XPO Gallery, Paris; Transfer Gallery, Brooklyn; The Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Museum of the Moving Image, New York; Thommassen Galleri, Gothenburg; Bitforms Gallery, New York; Mulherin + Pollard Projects, New York; DAAP Galleries, University of Cincinnati; 319 Scholes, New York; and the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, Milwaukee. His work has been cited in The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, El Pais, Huffington Post, Rhizome, Domus, Wired, The Brooklyn Rail, Liberation, and on BBC television.

COLIN EDGINGTON

Colin Edgington’s work explores ash as a symbol of state changes, particularly of the boundary between the visible and the invisible, the living and the non-living. In this way, he says, “it epitomizes transience.” Drawn from his upbringing in the American southwest, the ash structures are built to resemble demarcations of place, and are ultimately destroyed after photographing.

Colin Edgington (based in Greater New York) is a visual artist and writer. His work has been exhibited internationally and published nationally. He was named the winner of the Iowa Review Photography Prize, judged by Alec Soth, for his seemingly authorless body of work titled [umbrae] in 2012. He holds a BAFA in studio art from the University of New Mexico, an MFA in studio art from the Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University, and an MFA in Art Criticism & Writing from the School of Visual Arts, NYC.

GRISELDA SAN MARTIN

Griselda San Martin’s series “The Wall” documents families separated by their immigration status, who gather to meet at Friendship Park, located along the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. What started out as a simple barbed wire fence in the 1970’s has been expanded into an imposing metal wall, which extends some three hundred feet into the ocean. On the American side, patrols runs the border, while in Mexico, families roam freely and eat at restaurants nearby. At the wall, families meet, whispering to each other between the stakes, poking their fingers through the stakes and steel mesh to touch their loved ones.

Griselda San Martin (based in New York, NY; Tijuana, Mexico; and Barcelona, Spain) is a documentary photographer and visual journalist. Her documentary work explores transborder and transnational issues and focuses on concepts of identity and belonging in diasporic communities and ethnic minorities. She has been photographing and documenting the U.S.-Mexico border for the past four years. In June, 2015 she graduated from the the Photojournalism and Documentary photography program at the International Center of Photography in New York.

NETTA LAUFER

Netta Laufer (based in New York, NY) was born in Israel (1986), and raised in both Jerusalem and New York. Laufer’s “Black Beauty” was exhibited in a solo show at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem (2013), and at Fresh Paint 7 art fair in Tel-Aviv (2015). Recently Laufer exhibited the work “Cells” at Alfred Gallery, Tel-Aviv (2016). Her latest work “25FT” granted her the SVA Alumni Society Scholarship (2016)

JURAJ STAROVECKY

Juraj Starovecky presents a photographic recreation of Iron Curtain-era Czechoslovakia in his series “The Curtain”.  While skillfully placing the contemporary viewer in the shoes of those who risked their lives to cross the state border, he also encourages us to remember the human outrages of recent history.  “Over 866 people were killed while trying to cross the state border via the so called Iron Curtain between 1948 – 1989 in former Czechoslovakia. The purpose of this apparatus of absolute power was to kill and terrorize trespassers and to preserve fear inside an omnipotent political system, which had been denying basic human rights and freedom for 40 years. The contemporary status of social awareness about this significant problem of the past era is alarming. Instead of facing our own past and dealing with its traumas, collective amnesia is manifesting.”  Starovecky’s triptych Untitled (Alert) depicts the sort of warning signal deployed by guards to help apprehend trespassers, and places the viewer within a visceral dynamic of hunter vs. hunted.

Juraj Starovecky (based in Bratislava, Slovakia) works as freelance photographer. He finished his MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava in 2015, where he studied Photography and New Media. Juraj took an internship at Fachhochschule Bielefeld in Germany in 2014 and has also participated at several international workshops in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany.  He has hosted 4 solo shows and been involved in more than 30 group exhibitions (including MARTa Herford Museum in Germany, MUSA’s European Month of Photography in Vienna, Institut Francais’ Month of Photography in Bratislava, Fotosommer Erfurt and more).

ERLEND LINKLATER

Erlend Linklater’s series “Borderline” follows the artist’s tracing of one of the world’s oldest extant borders: that between England and Scotland. Linklater, who followed the border with an Ordnance Survey map, says its “significance in shaping cultural identity, nationalist aspiration and bureaucratic wrangling was never more obvious than during the Independence Referendum of 2014 and continues following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union.”

Erlend Linklater (based in Kampala, Uganda) wonders what shapes us and why we are like we are—what is the tapestry of stories that moulds identity while influencing behaviour and belief. His photography seeks to explore these themes informed by his experience as a Scot living and working across Africa, South America and Europe for more than 20 years.

DAQI FANG

Daqi Fang’s “Plastic Utopia II” is the second phase of a three-part series, in which the artist recreates landscapes first seen in dreams from satellite images drawn from Google Earth. These photographs speak to the disconnect between an absolute, quantified nature and the surreal plasticity of such data—which, as in Borges’s Library of Babel, can be rearranged in infinite possibilities, but only once it begins to resemble something of natural beauty does it take on significance. By including figures of himself, he also suggests the possibility of inhabiting this immaterial realm.

ABDULAZEZ DUKHAN

Abdulazez Dukhan will exhibit nine photos from his project “Through Refugee Eyes,” which documents his ongoing experience as a refugee of the Syrian civil war.  His intention is to help amplify the voice of refugees, to draw the world’s attention to their desperate situation.  “Your eyes are the way toward the truth, you can realize everything through them,” he states.  “Through photography and through art I am trying to connect with your eyes.  I am trying to tell you a thousand words, a thousand stories from the other world!”  Having fled their war-torn homes, they now find themselves trapped between borders, in the bewildering no-man’s-land of the camps.

Abdulazez Dukhan is an 18 year old Syrian refugee from Homs who, since his arrival in Idomini, Greece, has been detained in numerous camps within the country.  After being gifted a laptop and camera by a voluntary aid group, he has used his photography to provide a passionate voice and platform for displaced Syrians.  His project “Through Refugees Eyes” has attracted international attention, and his work has been exhibited in countries as diverse as Spain, Italy, Jakarta, China, Canada, and the US.

SPONSORS

New York Photography Diary would like to thank our generous sponsors, without whom this exhibition would not be possible.

An East London Fine Art Trade Guild-accredited photographic and fine art printer, and champion of emerging artists.

Elegantly simple professional picture hanging systems.

Terms and Conditions

General

• Terms and Conditions

  General

  • Deadline is 28th May

  • No entry fee

  • This exhibition on Gender Performance will take place at Carmel by The Green, located near Bethnal Green tube station, from July 6th until September 6th, with a Private View event on July 6th.

  • Entrants are not guaranteed inclusion in the exhibition by submitting an entry. Depending on

  the number and the quality of the entries received, the work of an entrant may or may not be

  curated into the final display.

  • Selected artists will be notified by 1st June and artwork must be delivered to Carmel by The

  Green by 1st July. Artists may either ship their work directly to the gallery or arrange to have it

  printed in London, and are responsible for costs incurred with either method. Works that arrive

  at Carmel by the Green after 1st July cannot be guaranteed to be exhibited in the show.

  • Selected artists are must have the works framed if they are small to medium sized and this is at the cost of the artist. London Photography Diary can supply resources for obtaining inexpensive, ready-made frames in London. Large works can be unframed and either pinned to the walls or mounted.

  • If selected artists desire to have their work printed in London, LPD can provide a list of trusted

  printers. However, London Photography Diary will not be responsible for ensuring the quality of

  the prints. Any works printed through such an arrangement will be subject to the terms and

  conditions set forth by the independent printer, and we encourage artists who choose this route

  to begin working with a printer as soon as possible.

  • All photographers must be 18 years or older worldwide and enter by submitting their own,

  original work. London Photography Diary (LPD) welcomes submissions from, and exhibits work

  of emerging as well as established photographers.

  • By entering, entrants automatically accept the conditions of the call; they grant London

  Photography Diary and Carmel by The Green non-exclusive right to use and reproduce

  submitted photographs (with the name of the photographer and the title of the work indicated)

  for promotional (e.g.: website and social media page of the London Diary and Carmel) and exhibition

  purposes. No royalties or compensation will be paid for these purposes. All copyrights and

  ownership of the works are retained by the photographer. Entrants assume and accept all legal

  and financial responsibility for any infringement on the privacy rights or copyright of others,

  caused by creating or presenting their work in public. London Photography Diary retains the

  right to exclude from the exhibition entries that violate the conditions of the call and ones that

  violate any human or privacy rights.

  • All works will be available for sale during the exhibition, unless the artist chooses to not sell their work, and a 20% commission will be taken on any sales, which will go to the editors and curators who have organized the show. Selected artists will set the price of their own works.

  • After the exhibition’s closure, the artists will be contacted by London Photography Diary to

  arrange for the collection or return of unsold works and the artist will be responsible for this cost.

  • London Photography Diary archives all photography exhibitions electronically, allowing us to

  promote our exhibiting photographers to curators, collectors as well as the viewing public.

  Requirements

  • PREPARE YOUR IMAGES

  • All layers must be flattened.

  • Images must follow the following format: 8 bit JPEG; Adobe RGB or sRGB; longest dimension

  maximum 1280 pixels (preferred width for landscape orientation: 1000 pixels; preferred height

  for portrait orientation: 775 pixels); 72 dpi; maximum 2 MB. Please include a maximum of three

   (3) works.
  • An image title is required upon upload, as well as an artist statement of up to 500 words.

  • Please submit your images by e-mail to: editors@london-photography-diary.com, indicating the

  theme of the exhibition in the subject line.

  • In the body of your submission e-mail please include

  • your full name;

  • your city and country (with state abbreviation if USA);

  • your portfolio link (if any);

  • the exhibition theme;

  • titles of all included photos with the corresponding file names (in case of a series, please

  number the photos of the series, and indicate the title of the series, if it has one);

  • the actual or desired print size (in centimeters or inches) of each photograph

  • FILE NAMING

  • lastname_firstnameinitial_LPD_worktitle_XX.jpg

  • For example lee_s_LPD_hate_2.jpg

  • No symbols or spaces in the file names

  • TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

  • Titles are required at the time of upload. The description area is for a brief statement,

  description of an alternative process, unusual size or installation etc.

  Contact information

  For any questions and to submit your work, please email us at: editors@london-photography-diary.com

• If you are interested in purchasing one of our exhibition pieces, please get in touch with us at: editors@ny-photography-diary.com or call Daniel Pateman on +447595662648.  Confirm your name, the work(s) you wish to purchase, the address you would like the work delivered to, and your telephone number.

• Payment method can be discussed after confirmation of interest. However we cannot accept cash or cheque.

• We, the curators, will help organise the delivery of the work to you from London, UK, selecting a suitable courier for the item’s delivery domestically or abroad. However, all delivery related costs (which may include customs charges if sent abroad) will be the responsibility of the buyer.  The cost of postage is not included in the advertised cost of the item.

• Once the item has been handed over to the preferred courier, New York Photography Diary is not responsible for any damage or wear that may occur in transit. Should you wish to purchase insurance as part of delivery, please let us know as soon as possible after confirming the purchase, so that we can arrange the appropriate delivery option for you.

• 20% of total sales will be taken as commission for the editors/curators who organised the “Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror” exhibition, except in regards the works of Abdulazez Dukhan, who will receive 100% of the total sale amount of any transactions.

• After December 13th 2016 we cannot guarantee that works will still be in our possession for the buyer to purchase.  However if works have not been sold we may be able to put you in touch with the originating artist to discuss purchase directly with them.

• Once purchased items cannot be returned or refunds made.

*Last Chance to purchase work from “Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror”*

Terms and Conditions of Purchase

Artist: Clement Valla

Title: Postcard from Google Earth (43°5’22.07″N,  79° 4’5.97″W) (from the series “Postcards from Google Earth“)

Year: 2010 (this edition printed 2016)

Medium: Archive pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 23 inches x 40 inches

Frame: 10mm, wide flat black style

Price: $3000

Artist: Colin Edgington

Title: Border Monument 1 (from the series “Ash”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print, edition 1/5

Dimensions: 16 inches x 24 inches

Frame: 20mm, black wood

Price: $800

Artist: Griselda San Martin

Title: Friendship Park (from the series “The Wall”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on fotospeed smooth pearl paper

Dimensions: 16 inches x 24 inches

Frame: 34mm, black, flat profile

Price: $1125

Title: Through the Wall (from the series “The Wall”)

Year: 2015 (printed 2016)

Medium: Archival pigment print on fotospeed smooth pearl paper

Dimensions: 16 inches x 24 inches

Frame: 34mm, black, flat profile

Price: $1125

Artist: Abdulazez Dukhan

Title: Sleep Deeply (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: Forgotten (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: Hope (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: From The Sky (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 7 inches x 5 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: Inside My Eyes (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: Non (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: Numbers (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: The End (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Title: Waiting (from the series “Through Refugees Eyes”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 5 inches x 7 inches

Frame: 18mm, dark walnut, deep profile

Price: $150

Artist: Juraj Starovecky

Title: Untitled (Alert).  Triptych from the series “The Curtain”.

Year: 2015

Medium: Archival pigment prints on Hahnemule Baryta paper, mounted on dibond

Dimensions: 33.7 x 28; 19.7 x 19.7; 11.8 x 9.8 (inches)

Price: $3250 for whole triptych.  Otherwise $1670 (large); $1115 (medium); $558 (small).

Artist: Netta Laufer

Title: West Bank, الضفة الغربية,הגדה המערבית (from the series “25FT”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 33 inches x 23 inches

Frame: 34mm, black flat profile

Price: $2100

Title: Dog, كلب, כלב (from the series “25FT”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Rag Pearl paper

Dimensions: 23 inches x 15 inches

Frame: 34mm, black flat profile

Price: $1700

Artist: Erlend Linklater

Title: -2.33526, 55.63205 (from the series “Borderline”)

Year: 2014

Medium: Digital C-type print, matt, mounted on 5mm foamex

Dimensions: 30 inches x 30 inches

Edition No: 2/8

Price: $940

Artist: Daqi Fang

Title: Plastic Utopia II #2 (from the series “Plastic Utopia II”)

Year: 2016

Medium: Archival pigment print

Dimensions: 18 inches x 18 inches

Frame: 20mm, black

Price: $800

Terms and Conditions of Purchase

Photos by Matteo Favero

The London Photography Diary is pleased to present our first exhibition, The Physical Fabric of Cities, at Carmel by the Green. This exhibition originated as an Open Call with the theme ‘Regeneration’. Organized by former London Photography Editor Maria Depaula-Vazquez.

Carmel by the Green
287a Cambridge Heath Road
London E2 0EL

Opening reception: 4 August, 6pm – 9pm
drinks provided by Peroni

Exhibition dates: 4 Aug – 4 Oct

Opening times: Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm
Thursday 8am to 6pm
Saturday 10:30am to 3:30pm

The Physical Fabric of Cities

For hundreds of years, capital and power have flowed through London, shaping its streets, structures, and societies. The fortune and character of different areas have ebbed and waned, depending on the politics and policies of the day, and the cultural life of the people who call the city home. Urban regeneration, for some, is about breathing new life into an area which has long been neglected or forgotten about by the wealthy and powerful. But for those already living in these areas, who face being swept out of their neighbourhood by these ‘winds of change’, regeneration means something entirely different. In biological terms, regeneration refers to the formation of new plant or animal tissue – the reparation and binding, rather than dispersion, of life.

Artists

Lewis Bush

Lewis Bush is a photographer, writer, lecturer, and curator based in London. His work explores the role that photography plays in the uneven distribution of power in our world, whether that be political, economic, or military, and explores the possibility of using photography as a means to challenge those who hold power.

The ‘metropole’ was a term once used to describe London in its relationship with the British Empire, a relationship hierarchical and unequal, with power radiating out from the metropolitan centre, and the resources of the dominions radiating back in return. A composite of numerous nighttime walks through the city, Metropole records the effect of this capital influx on London by documenting its numerous new corporate high rises and luxury residential blocks as they are constructed and occupied.

Victoria Jouvert, I wont come back, 2015

Victoria Jouvert

Victoria’s first project for her BA Photography course at London College of Communications documented a group of council buildings due to be demolished to make way for new high priced luxury flats.  “I found in my extensive searching of the buildings the sprawling of a child’s pencil upon the wall of a closet where there was written “I won’t come back and I mean it,” which became the title of the work that was presented in a series of nine images accompanied by a poem that explores my personal motives for leaving home at 18 and the forceful removal of the mystery tenants from their homes.”

“I documented the things the previous owners left behind. The objects of these homes completely captured me; I became obsessed with them and what they told me about their previous occupiers. The line between the people who once lived there and myself became blurred as I delved deeper and deeper into the fragments of the lives I gathered from forgotten items. I developed a deep feeling of understanding for the previous occupiers forced out of their homes leaving the remains of their past lives behind like the remnants of a tragic evacuation. Through this personal portrayal of the objects left behind I explored themes of melancholia, memory, and the political tensions behind the regeneration of London.”

Accompanying poem

Tim Palman, Wellard, 2016

Tim Palman

Tim is an emerging photographic artist born and based in Perth, Western Australia. He is currently completing an undergraduate degree in Photography. His work takes a documentary format, culminating in large-scale projects that explore and expose the human condition through the study of physical and social landscapes.

Tim’s method of photographing is one that is borrowed from the tradition of the great American documentary photographers such as Walker Evans or Robert Adams, in which he assumes the role of the flaneur – the photographs merely acting as evidence of one’s movement throughout the landscape. The use of an old, slow, large format camera brings limits to the compositional of his photographs, which as a result function as the “collection” of places, objects and people, void of any true decisive moment.

“These three images are a part of a larger body I am currently working on, entitled Wellard. The series is a documentary interrogation of the new development area suburb of Wellard amongst the urban sprawl of the City of Perth, Western Australia. The body of work in largely autobiographical, acting as a personal response to my process of moving into the area and my disenchantment with the concept of the ‘private estate’. One of the most prominent themes of the work is the relationship of myself to my mother, who I still live with and who’s dream it was to move to Wellard. As a result, there is a discourse in the work between the idea of the maternal, with regards to growth and comfort, and the idea of The Sublime which manifests itself in the wildness of the natural landscape. The topic of regeneration is one which is entwined is this work, as the process of developing an area is one which could be seen as the regeneration of the area as a societal space. This process, however, is one which requires the killing of nature which is replaced by suburban homogeny, a place of suppression.”

Willie Robb, SPIKES #24, 2013

Willie Robb

Willie Robb is a photographer, video producer and artist who was born and raised near Perth in Scotland and is now based in Lewes, East Sussex. He graduated from Brighton University in 2008 with a BA(Hons) in Photography and continues to create self-initiated projects using a blend of autobiographical and documentary practice.

“In 2014 #spikegate hit the headlines. The tag was initiated by an introduction of two inch, metal pavement spikes, a radical form of ‘defensive’ or ‘disciplinary’ architecture, at the entrance of flats in Southwark, London. The spikes were eventually removed. I found myself counting homeless individuals in Brighton one year earlier, a city that is also witnessing an unquestionable rise in street sleepers. Constantly looking down led me to notice plants creeping through cracks in the pavement. It felt like a symbolic resistance. Coltsfoot, Buddleia, Dandelion and Nettle interrupted the perfect surface, a reminder that the status quo is never rock solid. Things can change.”

Kaveh Golestan: Prostitute (1975-1977) at Photo London

by Coleen MacPherson

After a visit to Tehran in January, witnessing Kaveh Golestan’s work at Photo London this May was incredibly resonating. The prolific photojournalist’s exhibition, aptly named “Prostitute” (1975-1977), embodied an excruciating silence of the Tehran women. Hidden deep in the red light district, we learn that the forgotten women work tirelessly at Shahr-e No, deep in the basement of a dimly lit Somerset House. Their fragile yet strong faces confront our own illusions of late twentieth-century life.

Golestan’s “Prostitute” allows us to intrude into the real – the rooms these women live and work in, their environment, and consequently the myriad of contradictions that exist in modern life. Essential in providing context, the exhibit shares a timeline alongside the photographs and newspaper articles to help us delved deeper into these women’s pasts.

A wall was erected around the district in 1953 after the coup d’état, and as a result created the ghetto known as Citadel Shahr-e No.  Shortly before the cultural revolution of 1979, Golestan captured the everyday life of these women; powerful images show some lounging on their beds, others staring softly at the camera while another leans against the wall of a darkened room.  These natural, unassuming yet striking photos went on to form a photo essay of the Citadel by Golestan, exhibited at the University of Tehran briefly before it was shut down.

It was only a short while after these photos were taken that a mob set fire to the district and left several dead.  Many of these women were arrested and executed by the Islamic State in an act of cleansing.  After the fire destroyed the district, a lake was then erected, which features in a handful of the photographs. This lake evokes an emotional response from the viewer, who can see it as a living symbol of how, even now, religious theocracy exists. Therefore, Golestan’s work serves as a reminder of a sensitive issue and offers an earnest look at a forgotten world. Alongside the bravery of the Tehran women, Golestan’s own bravery rings through in his message to us – sharing the truth is invaluable.

Coleen MacPherson

Coleen MacPherson is a Canadian writer and theatre director with a thirst to explore the world. She trained at École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where she mentored with French playwright, Michel Azama. She has recently founded Open Heart Surgery Theatre:  a group of international theatre-makers, creating work in London at Camden People’s Theatre, Mimetic Festival; in Paris at Plateau 31 and will soon be presenting ‘This is Why We Live’in Toronto at The Theatre Centre.  She is constantly inspired by photography and the power of the image.