“In what way can the work of both Lewis Bush and Clare Rae both be considered political?”

“the audience is often partly an abstract and unknowable future, that documentary photography is in part a practice of archive and record making for posterity or history” (Bush 2016: 1)

In this essay, I will be exploring the concepts behind the personal works of Lewis Bush and Clare Rae in an effort to showcase how their exhibitions can be considered political. Both artists have experienced Jersey closely as part of the Archisle ‘Photographer in Residence’ programme in which they produced their different interpretations of the political landscape, Bush choosing to focus on the local finance industry whilst Rae investigated roles of gender. Clare Rae’s exhibition titled “Entre Nous” features works alongside Claude Cahun who served as an inspiration to the concept of her work on gender and the landscape. On the other hand Lewis Bush’s “Trading Zones” serves as the beginning of a long-term concept on the financial meaning of onshore and offshore locations.

Lewis Bush

“Trading Zones” is the result of a six month residency in Jersey, in which Lewis Bush investigates the local finance industry. Bush’s work is a visual documentation of the “profoundly ancient and highly modern” (Bush, 2018) industry that reflects the style of the documentary movement where a situation is shown simply without interference. Bush explores the secrecy surrounding the industry in various mediums, presenting conventional photographs as well as cameraless photographs and data sources. The finance industry may sometimes be perceived negatively as it becomes a main focus over other industries such as agriculture. I personally view it as immoral for off-shore businesses to safely place their money within Jersey to avoid taxes, however this is not actually illegal to do. Lewis gives the viewers of the exhibition the opportunity to reflect their own opinions on the industry through cards titled “Finance is……” He acknowledges how “the population of the island support (or do not support) the industry’s presence here” (Bush, 2018). Bush identifies that at its core, finance is just “the accidental product of events going back almost a thousand years, but it is also the result of very intentional choices made over the last half century” (Bush, 2018). This statement reflects how the abandonment of other important industries such as the fishing industry has been in order to adapt with the modern times and other important cities such as the city of London, what is considered to be the “onshore” for many of the businesses that use Jersey as a deposit for their money.

Lewis Bush, Trading Zones, 2018

Clare Rae

Clare Rae’s “Entre Nous” is heavily inspired by the works of Claude Cahun, a notable female, queer artist who escaped to Jersey in the second World War to avoid the Nazis as she was Jewish. Cahun’s work explored gender through self-portraiture, reflecting the ideals of surrealism through the use of different personas that define static gender roles. Clare Rae has taken inspiration from Cahun’s work in order to present her own interpretation of gender through her relationship with the landscape. She was drawn to the island of Jersey as it holds the biggest collection of Claude Cahun’s work, selections of her work are featured in the exhibition in which they must be destroyed afterwards as they are not original prints. This is because the gallery does not withhold museum standards such as the maintenance of a stable temperature. Shot with a limited number of black and white film, Clare Rae positions herself in her environment in a way that suggests the significance of a female in a man-made landscape. Using aspects of tableaux, the act of staging a photograph in order to depict an important scene of history, Clare contradicts the expected norms of the representation of the female body; that in which is as a result of male artists. Clare demonstrates that she takes the importance of her work into consideration, even becoming influenced by the narrative of her own images when deciding the layout of her photos in the exhibition. Michelle Mountain, Program Manager CCP notes “Clare had quite a good vision in her mind for how she wanted the exhibition to look” (CCP, 2018). Rae had chosen to paint the walls of the gallery separate colours, white for Clare Rae and a soft grey for Claude Cahun, in order to distinguish between the conversation of gender between the two artists.

Clare Rae, Entre Nous, 2018

In conclusion, both Lewis Bush and Clare Rae’s works demonstrate Jersey as a political landscape in different ways. Bush’s perspective aims to focus on the effects of the finance industry on the local population whereas in contrast Clare Rae’s work almost feels more personal to her on the basis of it being her own body in the landscape. Choosing to take a documentary approach, Bush is able to capture exactly what he sees as an outsider, yet his works are supported by such a great amount of research that his perspective becomes more relatable to the actual population of Jersey. On the other hand, Clare Rae carefully stages her images showing the importance of the issue both to her, as well as to other people such as the very person she took inspiration from, Claude Cahun.

Bibliography

Bate, D (2015), The Art of the Document In: Bate, D (2015), Art Photography. London: Tate Publishing

Bush (2016), What is Documentary Photography II, Location of site: http://www.disphotic.com/what-is-documentary-photography-ii/

CCP (2018), Behind the scenes of Entre Nous: Claude Cahun and Clare Rae, Location of site: https://vimeo.com/271385464

Feuerhelm (2018), Lewis Bush: General Interrogation and Jersey Metropole Primer, Location of site: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2018/09/lewis-bush-general-interrogation-jersey-metropole-primer.html