About personal study
The personal study needs to be finished by the end of the February half term and is a self directed study, you will make a hypothesis of what you want and are going to find out in this study. All of your work relating to this hypothesis must be enough to make up an entire book. You must find a subject and choose a story, finding a real issue and explore it. You’ll also be writing an essay about this of about 2,000-3,000 words.

Case study | Quintessence Archisle
This project brings together select Jersey photographers and international photographers in an exhibition set up by the Archisle. The Archisle was put together back in 2010 and has now been around for 5 years.
The Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive in 2011 launched the Jersey Contemporary Photography Programme to promote contemporary photography in an ongoing programme of exhibitions as well as through eduction bringing Hautlieu into the mix. This brings in ideas to connect photographic archives, contemporary practise and experiences of island cultures. Jersey has become a big part in photographic history and has influenced many artists and new ideas. This exhibition celebrates the first five years of the Archisle. The exhibition contains work from 6 artists either from Jersey or whom have worked with the Archisle and they were each asked to come up with another artist who has inspired and influenced them. The artists are; Martin Toft – Finn Larsen, Tom Pope – Peter Finnemore, Michelle Sank – David Goldblatt, Yury Toroptsov – Elsie Wright and Frances Griffths, Martin Parr – Tony Ray-Jones, Mark Le Ruez – John Gibbons, Jem Southam.

Islandness | What I think
I really like the concept of islandness. To me it really makes sense as I do feel that as an island we are really bubbled from the rest of the world, unique. We tend to see the world differently to those living in the UK. For example, a mass murder in Jersey will hit headline news and be all everyone talks about for months and no one forgets but in America things like that seem to happen all the time and you lose count of how many killings there have actually been. This could be because of the fact that Jersey is so small and these things happen in America because it is so vast and huge but we do seem to reflect on the world in a different way. The idea of islandness is supposed to connect the thousands of islands across the world together. Our concept of identity is different to the rest of the worlds.
Our upbringing and culture moulds us and makes each of us unique. We can change with anything or anyone we meet or a place we go to and it can have good or bad results. Everything that you encounter changes you in one way or another, you can be somehow influenced by something in your life without even noticing it.

The Exhibition | My thoughts
answering questions

When entering the exhibition firstly I thought that it was in a much better location being in the Jersey Art Centre as it is quite a quirky place with the cafe beneath it and is in a more accessible part of town which a lot more teens and adults will likely know about. I also much prefer the layout of this exhibition compared to the Jersey Evening Post – Your Story, Our History: 125 Years Through a Jersey Evening Post Lens. This exhibition looks very professional and I prefer the white walls with the white frames on more of the images. I find the whole thing just looks a lot more professional and clear it is very well constructed and just altogether a better exhibition. I like that the Jersey photographers have their chosen artist/photographers work next to their own to show who they have been influenced and inspired by. I really like this idea of sharing and being influenced by other artists. I find it great that this exhibition is also able to sell the photographers work and showcase their talents to the community of local Jersey islanders. I have decided to do some further research on the work of Finn Larsen as I find his work captivating and after discussion at the exhibition I found that there is so much more to the beauty of the images that are shown in the exhibition itself which I am excited to explore further.