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A2 Personal Investigation, AO4 Present Ideas

Mandy Barker Response 2

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My Edits

In Photoshop, I drew around the outline of all items with the select tool in order to place them on one black background. I altered the size and rotation of items to give perspective. In the above image, I placed all items that consisted of plastic material.

To eliminate more black space, I took the items of one image and placed them over the other.

I also liked the look of some of the items when they were on their own as although they were minimalistic, they encouraged the viewer to imagine the stories behind these items.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO3 Record Ideas

Mandy Barker Response 2 Plan

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Concept: To capture the rubbish I have collected in the style of Mandy Barker’s “Soup” series.

Location: Photo Studio, Black background

Props: Items I have collected

Lighting: I will attach a trigger to the camera that works with the studio lighting flash system

Camera Settings: Shutter Speed – 1/160, Aperture – F16, ISO – 100

The items will appear to float on a black background.

A2 Personal Investigation, Planning

Photoshoot Plans for the Christmas/New Year period

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Shoot 1:

Concept: Inspired by Keith Arnatt’s ‘The Tears of Things’ project, I will capture the rubbish objects that I have collected over the past few weeks.

Location: I will capture these images in a studio-like location.

Lighting: I will use artificial lighting spotlighted onto the objects so that everything else around them is dark.

Props: A piece of black card to form a simple background for the objects

Camera Settings: A large aperture to achieve a shallow depth of field

Shoot 2:

Concept: I will capture objects of pollution in a style similar to Chrystel Lebas’ ‘Weeds and Aliens’ and ‘Animated Nature’ projects.

Lighting: Natural lighting or artificial lighting so the details of the objects are visible.

Props: Plain Background.

Camera Settings: Standard settings to capture the object. Instead of using photographic paper in a darkroom, I will instead edit the images in post-production making them negative and then adjusting the hue to a similar colour to Chrystel Lebas’ work.

Shoot 3:

Concept: To capture the process of collecting items in the environment they destroy, in the style of Mark Dion

Location: The beach along the avenue

Lighting: Natural Daylight

Props: The items I have found

Camera Settings: Automatic settings to photograph in a documentary style approach

A2 Personal Investigation

Photography and Truth

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Death of a Loyalist Soldier

robert-capa-falling-soldier

‘Death of a Loyalist Soldier’ is a photo taken by war photographer and photojournalist  Robert Capa and is claimed to have been taken on September 5, 1936. It depicts the exact moment of death when a republican soldier in the was shot in Battle of Cerro Muriano in the Spanish Civil War. Picture Post, a pioneering photojournalism magazine published in the United Kingdom, had once described then twenty-five year old Capa as “the greatest war photographer in the world” and his ‘falling solider’ photo is said to be the most iconic image of the Spanish Civil War.

The composition of this image makes it look like the moment was unanticipated because of how the horizon isn’t straight and how the soldier feet are touching the bottom of the image. If the moment was anticipated than Capa would have set up a better composition in the photo, but because it was unexpected he didn’t have time. This is also indicated through the blurriness in some parts of the image where Capa had to take the photo quickly. The photo is black and white because it was taken in 1936 making the image more formal and leads the audiences eye to the soldier straight away. The foreground of the image shows the soldier being shot and falling back towards the ground and the background displays mountains out of focus, showing how the image was unanticipated.

Doubts have been raised since 1975 in relation to the authenticity of the image. In José Manuel Susperregui’s 2009 book “Shadows of Photography”, he concludes that the photograph was not taken at Cerro Muriano, but at another location about 30 miles away. He said this meant that the Falling Soldier photograph ‘was staged, as were all the others in the same series, supposedly taken on the front.

This position the solider is in makes the image seem authentic as his arm holding the gun has been thrown backwards like he’s just been shot. But the likelihood of catching the exact moment a soldier was shot is very unlikely making the claims against Robert Capa more believable, but still isn’t evidence. But the environment surrounding the soldier doesn’t look like it was taken in the ‘heat of the battle’ said Mr. Hartshorn making the image looked like it’s staged.

This photo above is of another man from the same sequence as “The Falling Soldier.” A researcher has used the mountains to identify what he says is the picture’s correct location. Cynthia Young, curator of the Robert Capa Archive at the I.C.P “very possibly didn’t remember” where he took the picture, probably leaving his agents and editors back in Paris to make a guess when they developed his film, defending the authenticity.

Capa described how he took the photograph in a 1947 radio interview:

I was there in the trench with about twenty milicianos … I just kind of put my camera above my head and even [sic] didn’t look and clicked the picture, when they moved over the trench. And that was all. … [T]hat camera which I hold [sic] above my head just caught a man at the moment when he was shot. That was probably the best picture I ever took. I never saw the picture in the frame because the camera was far above my head

Richard Whelan, in This Is War! Robert Capa at Work, states, ‘It is neither a photograph of a man pretending to have been shot, nor an image made during what we would normally consider the heat of battle.’

Although Capa’s image could have been staged, the exposure he gave to the public about war by portraying a soldier the moment he was shot was effective and displays the turmoil that’s experienced in war.

“Which ever way you view the authenticity of his work and the identity he created, the impact that Capa has had cannot be denied. Every photograph taken represents a metaphor that will eternally last in the viewer’s mind, depicting a time riven with devastation that is still felt today. It is these timeless reverberations his photography has created that made him ‘the greatest war photographer in the world’.” (Andrew Kingsford-Smith)

In his July 1998 article, Phillip Knightley deniedthe importance of Brotóns’s discovery and stated “The famous photograph is almost certainly a fake—Capa posed it.” He went on to argue, “Federico could have posed for the photograph before he was killed.” Richard Whelan sought the advice of a forensic expert, Captain Robert L.Franks, the chief homicide detective of the Memphis Police Department. to my request. In his analysis, he said that the first thing that struck him as odd about The Falling Soldier was that the man in the photograph “had been standing flat footed when he was shot. He clearly was not in stride when he was shot.”  He went on to write, “Was this picture posed? I think not, based on the human reflex response. You will notice that the soldier’s left hand, which is partially showing under his left leg, is in a semi-closed position. If the fall was, in fact, staged, the hand would be open to catch his fall.  The deduction that the man had been carrying his rifle in a was suggesting that he did not expect to use it soon led Richard Whelan  to reconsider the story.

 “They were fooling around,” [Capa] said. “We all were fooling around. We felt good. There was no shooting. They came running down the slope. I ran too and knipsed.”                             “Did you tell them to stage an attack?” asked Mieth.
“Hell no. We were all happy. A little crazy,
maybe.”
“And then?”
“Then, suddenly it was the real thing. I didn’t
hear the firing—not at first.”
“Where were you?”
“Out there, a little ahead and to the side of
them.”

 

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283315

A2 Personal Investigation

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

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

I will be investigating the ideas behind the works of Lewis Bush and Clare Rae by suggesting different concepts about their work to stage how their exhibitions can be considered political. Both artists have experienced Jersey closely. Lewis Bush focused on the local finance industry whilst Clare Rae investigated roles of gender. Clare Rae’s exhibition titled “Entre Nous” features works with Claude Cahun who helped as an inspiration to the concept of her work on gender and the landscape. However, Lewis Bush’s “Trading Zones” aids as the beginning of a long-term concept on the financial meaning of onshore and offshore locations.

Contemplated as political, Lewis Bush’s work revolves around the concept of producing photography through different photographic methods such as topography and landscapes.Lewis Bush has finalised projects looking at the redevelopment of London (Metropole) and most recently a project focusing on the finance sector in Jersey. Lewis based the project ‘Metropole’ in London as he felt the city which he grew up in was becoming wasted with government schemes of regeneration leading to demolition and construction of new buildings. Lewis’ most recent project ‘trading zones’ has similar connotations to Metropole as Lewis is showing how the finance industry is managing to take over jersey in a number of different ways.An aspect I found dominant from his work from the exhibition was his way of how political landscapes within a specific business shaped the employees in accordance with its development. This was described as “the self-image of how finance represents itself”

Bush collected multiple images of finance employees from different finance companies and merged them together which created an overall figure. This is done by overlapping various workers profile pictures which created a general portrait of the faces behind the businesses, whilst offering us with an insight into the otherwise unseen side of companies. Furthermore, this exhibition conveyed another political message which was clear, the board filled with various people’s opinions on the financial sector of Jersey with a large merged portrait of a certain business. By gathering opinions to form an overall insight into societies perspective of finance in jersey and in general created an overall opinion on what they think. This created an un-bias result, this was because the cards patented from a number of different sources. (schools, finance and retail sectors) This allowed the feedback to emphasis how they viewed Jersey and which way it should head.

Image result for claude cahun photographyImage result for claude cahun photography

In contrast to Lewis Bush’s work Clare Rae took a different approach to tackling politics in her photography. She chose jersey as her location as she knew that Jersey had the largest collection of Claude Cahun’s work and her work helped to inspire her exhibition. Claude Cahun was a queer, surrealist photographer who was originally known as ‘Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob’. Claude Cahun was chosen as this was a gender ambiguous name which links with her and Clare’s work as it is about gender and gender stereotypes. Claude Cahun’s work was set in Jersey around the time of the second world war when it was occupied by Germans. Photography was a way for Clare to experiment with her own gender as a performance and to perhaps discomfort a typical stereotype from the early 1900’s. Clare Rae was inspired by Cahun’s work as it allowed her to use it to take on a similar journey. Clare Rae took both visual and conceptual tips from Cahun with all of her photographs being taken in black and white.

Image result for clare rae photographyImage result for clare rae photography

Clare also used a film camera which allowed her to put more thought into her work as it restricted her to a certain number of images per film suggesting that her images where to a high standard. A big part of Clare’s imagers followed the theory of the male gaze, by using this idea she used it to challenge it by taking images of her own body and by doing this she is controlling the female figure in art which is tented to be taken advantage of by the male artist in a sexualized way. This links to political landscape as Clare’s images could be linked to the feminist theory.

Clare’s work and Lewis’ don’t have links in the way they are actually taken as Clare’s are tableau and are staged as they have been taken in a way to relate to Claude’s work and self-portraits. In addition, Lewis’ work has been taken in a way that relates to his own styled a sense of documentary photography. Furthermore, the two photographers work was both based in jersey however two very different approaches where taken into consideration. Lewis came to Jersey out of pure freedom and with a specific idea focusing on the financial sector. On the other hand Claire Rae came to Jersey as she knew that they were a large collection of Claude’s work. Overall, the two photographers are both exploring their work through the changes and impacts their subjects are having on society. However, both artists work has clear connotations of political landscape ranging from feminism and the finance sector. Which suggests that both photographers were working under the same genre of photography being political landscape due to the fact they are handling issue that are impacting society and how the work they are producing is helping create awareness of the impacts.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO4 Present Ideas, Develop, Experimentation

EXPERIMENTATION

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Marc Quinn ‘Self’ – 1991

These pictures are experiments of my own existing material from previous projects. Each piece of material that I have taken from my photographic archive were taken with different incentives yet i have merged them together and created images with different meanings within their context. I’ve done this to further explore my idea of how western culture identifies with meat, in the hope of developing an alternative response that incorporates emotion and a story within my images. This inspiration has stemmed from the artist Marc Quinn and his ongoing series of self-portrait sculptures ‘Self’, sculptured entirely from his own blood, capturing his aging throughout the years. Quinn’s sculptures are innocently morbid, encapsulating the idea that we are all just made of meat.  He’s used mediums from his own body without harming himself. Throughout history, there has always been the repeated idea that the body is sacred and should be left untouched after death. When exposed, the internal body has always been associated with death, perhaps connected with the fragility of life and the fragility of the body, yet the exposure of our insides is often forbidden through the eyes of religion. Western Religion has always taught people to respect the body before and especially after death. This also aligns with our laws and standards; it is commonly known that any mutilation of the body is forbidden. Although we carry out respect for our own bodies, the consummation of meat is often overlooked. The whole process of producing meat violates and mutilates an animals body before and after death. Surely all life in every shape and form should be protected, yet we break this rule by reassuring ourselves that animals are less than us and therefore, it is okay to enforce ill treatment upon them just to satisfy an acquired taste that everyone picks up from an early age. These photos that I have created is a reflection of ourselves and our diets. I have placed another animals internal layers above the external layers of these portraits, just for the sake of spite; we can’t mutilate one another but can mutilate beings ‘lesser’ than us – I have surfaced how this reflects on us – almost like the infamous Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, relating to the scene when she hallucinates blood on her hands. The meat connotes death within a picture of a life.

A2 Personal Investigation, Essay

Essay- Lewis Bush and Clare Rae

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

For my essay I intend to explore how the photographers Clare Rae and Lewis Bush can be considered political. Clare Rae is a photographer, based in Melbourne, Australia, who herself engages with the landscape she is photographing to represent an underlying themes or concept often relating to feminism, whereas Lewis Bush is a British photographer who explores themes of power and inequality in the world, questioning who holds power and how it is used.  Both these photographer explore themes that are relevant and being considered political in their own ways.

Clare Rae

In March 2017 Archisle invited Clare Rae to a research residency project studying the Claude Cahun collection held by Jersey, engaging with images in the photographic archives of the Société Jersiaise. She explained: “I was primarily interested in viewing the Cahun photographs held at Jersey Archive, and I knew I also wanted to make some photographs on the island. This is where her exhibition ‘Entre Nous’  was created, bringing together photographs by the French artist Claude Cahun and her contemporary work  almost 70 years apart.

Claude Cahun’s  was an avant-garde queer artist who’s photographic self-portraits, in which she assumed a variety of personas, were associated with the Parisian surrealist movement in the 1920s, before she moved to Jersey in the 1930s where she lived most of her life. Her work was both political and personal, and often undermined traditional concepts of static gender roles. She once explained: “Under this mask, another mask; I will never finish removing all these faces.”   While many male Surrealists depicted women as objects of male desire, Cahun staged images of herself that challenge the idea of the politics of gender. She was exploring her identity, not defining it. Her self-portraits often interrogates space, such as domestic interiors  and Jersey landscapes using rock crevasses and granite gate posts.

When I see this image I interpret it as Clare Rae representing the femininity surrounded by  a vast landscape perhaps portraying how herself and woman feel in society. Throughout this series she incorporates Jersey Neolithic history, dolmens and stone remains, being inspired by the work Claude Cahuns’s produced in Jersey. I think this use of stone in her images is representing masculinity in the world, the contrast of her fluid body positions to the structured .. stone shapes being deliberate and political. In the particular image above, her use of tableaux photography where she places herself looking around at the surrounding environment, positioned on top the stone, I think further emphases her views of being a female in the world today, linking to Cahun’s work when she was undermining traditional gender roles in the 1920s. This can be considered political as she’s also addressing gender roles and identities, reflecting Claude Cahun when woman were always represented by male artists, never representing themselves. Clare Rae states ‘she’s not trying to reveal something other own personality, but more depict an experience of how being a women in our time is sometimes precarious and uncomfortable’, similar to Claude cajun exploring the male gaze and its relationship to both the female body and our imagining of the landscape. I think this is political it goes against the gender roles of the 1930s where women didn’t represent themselves, Clare Rae placing herself into a landscape, her body positions against and on top of rocks representing how being a woman is ‘sometimes uncomfortable’.

Claude Cahun defended woman’s rights and was pivotal in the movement for gender equality as she represented herself however she wanted as feminine, masculine and androgynous, defying all attempts to categorize her according to gender binary. Rather, she creates her own category, where she’s free to express herself according to her own desires. This work is very political as it goes against all the gender traditions in a society where these were rigidly enforced about how women where expected to act, helping change the political landscape and rights for women.

This political theme emulates through Clare Rae’s work as she surrounds herself or places her body around stone and structured objects that are strong and dominate within the image. This is then juxtaposed with her feminine body which many of the images only a small part is shown like her hands or legs in a way dehumanising her and representing all women.

‘Like Cahun’s, my photographs depict my body in relation to place”

Lewis Bush

Lewis Bush is a photographer, writer and researcher exploring themes such as power and inequality in the world. His exhibition ‘Trading Zones’ is the result of six months spent as the 2018 Archaise photographer in residence at the Société Jersiaise. It addressed the public debate about the activities of the ‘finance industry which he finds is an enormously complex field, spanning multiple practices, cultures, and jurisdictions.’ This area has gone largely unrepresented in documentary practice due to its complexity and difficulty to access. To do this he used  a wide range of photographic approaches, ranging from conventional photography, to appropriated imagery, cameraless photographs, public polling, and the reuse of data sources. He wanted examine different aspects of finance, highlighting aspects of Jersey’s past and present which have been conducive to the growth of finance, and inviting Jersey people to contribute their own thoughts about the industry.

This image portrays portraits of finance workers combining together creating two images representing the male and female identities within the finance industry. I think this can be considered political it’s essentially merging together all the individuals working in the finance industry and displaying them as one person, taking away their originality , perhaps representing the stereotype of some who works in an office. Bush draws attention to forms of invisible power that operate in the world and by representing people as merged could link to the idea of shaping individuals of finance as the industry changes.  His aim was ‘try and give viewers a hint of what finance is in a place like Jersey, but also the strange nature of it’, the merging of the faces being a part of that. He describes finance as ‘profoundly ancient and highly modern’ as it’s a product of event going back thousands of years but is still highly relevant today in Jersey. Expressing this makes his work political as he uses information historic and new and documents the changing of peoples opinions on the industry. He does this by allowing visitors at his exhibition to comment their views, giving a platform for people to express their thoughts negative or positive.

‘Trading Zones’ also includes a series of photos taken around the island as Lewis was pointing his camera towards other financial centres. “I wanted to connect faraway places with the local industry,” he explained.

Comparison

Both photographers work can be considered political, Clare Rae’s work expressing views on gender roles by representing herself in her images emphases her views of being a female in the world today, whereas Lewis Bush’s work documents the finance industry and forms of invisible power in relation to the employees and history. Clare Rae uses a tableaux approach, placing herself in the landcape where shes surrounded by structured objects, such as furniture and stone. Lewis bush on the other hand uses documentary photography portraying the effects on the developing finance industry

Links

behind the scenes video link:
https://ccp.org.au/about/news/behind-the-scenes-of-entre-nous-claude-cahun-and-clare-rae

http://www.clarerae.com/work/never-standing-on-two-feet

https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/entre-nous-contemporary-artist-collides-avant-garde-photographs/

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160629-claude-cahun-the-trans-artist-years-ahead-of-her-time

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-cahun-claude.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/05/the-1920s-young-women-took-the-struggle-for-freedom-into-their-personal-lives

Lewis Bush

http://www.archisle.org.je/

https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/trading-zones-new-exhibition-explores-finance-industry-culture/#.W-s7Pi2cbUo

Trading Zones

A2 Personal Investigation, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas

manifesto shoot and the sublime: shoot on bodily form/ surrealism inspired : Shoot 3 for sublime

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For this more bodily focused shoot ,I was inspired by a set of images that had such power and wonderment by expressing an personal exploration of their bodies and they way in which they work is so abstract from that of anyone else. I belive there is a real strong sense of emotion within these photos and also the way in which I could also form colour and composition into this could  to connote many important ideologies to do with political, power and the effect this has on people emotionally. However to develop this shoot  further I have decided to divid it into two sections, one of which purley focusing on the textures, forms ,shapes and composition in which a body can make. And the next is capturing someone dancing and the way in which there practice of a dance such as ballet is a complete contradiction in the way in which a human body can and should be able to contort itself. Because of this i belive every dancer must have a strong passion for the sport and also have a strong emotional vulnerability to be able to dance in front of so many and practice for the long extended periods that they do so well. I belive the body of a person is such a sublime concept. So many things need to work in order for it to transpire and work each and every day and this is almost unacknowledged and ignored. Because of this i belive its pain and yet the beauty it goes through contains such a strong sense of power that really makes it sublime.

For the first shoot I had many ideas going round my head of the way in which I should capture this shoot and the effect it has in many different Formal composition and colour co ords. I think I have experimented so well ad throughly and this will help in the long run as good practice before I concentrate on what I would view as the more difficult shoot with the dancer. Due to my book not having a exact narrative but each of the images having the relation of a sublime power will really work well with these shoots and also with the effect of my previous nature shoot.

Plan for part of this shoot:As spoken about previously I wanted my shoot to show such an abstract positive and worldly experience throughout the composition of the room itself to become inviting and full of senses to be heightened to that of the bright colour can create a trance like effect for those who become part of the art itself. I want to create a whole exhibition to capture a purity of life and love within the whole shoot. Not only this but motion will still be occurrent throughout the shoot, in order to show aspects fo reality and have the person being immersed within the space but not in such a easy they become a solid attribute of the space itself.When creating the space I was very particular about the images I intended to use. I wanted to show imagery that would enhance the space and create a dream like state of informed surrealism. After I had chosen the images my next aim was to set up the room and compose it in such a ways it would look effective and pleasing to whoever would walk in and see it.

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hand and body edits and close ups

As said previously I wanted to focus on the bodily composition so edited and present my  images of hand under the effect of light, as the light itself can convey an emotion dependent on the colour itself. I believe the hands are successful and contain an interesting interest point. Overall I Think the editing of the colour photos are too over exposed but this had to be done in order to fit with my manifestos artist inspiration. However I think this will further develop my ideas as i know now i do not want to continue with these ideas of faces, but focus more on the structure of the body, and this might become more interesting within the mystery and not seeing an identity to the image itself.

A2 Personal Investigation, Contextual Studies

Contextual Studies: Photography and Truth

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Woman Reading a Possession Order

  • Object:

    Photograph

  • Place of origin:

    Hackney (made)

  • Date:

    1997 (made)

  • Artist/Maker:

    Hunter, Tom (photographer)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Dye destruction print (Ilfochrome)

“Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveller, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighbourhood.”

This photograph was taken in Tom Hunter’s home street in Hackney. Residents that made up the community, including himself, were fighting eviction as squatters. The title of the series comes from the wording used in eviction orders. The postures and gestures reference Vermeer’s paintings and set out to give status and dignity to his community. Hunter captures with acute sensitivity, the zeitgeist of the 1990s and life in London at that time.

-In Johannes Vermeer Painting titled ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’  the open window is on one level intended to represent “the woman’s longing to extend her domestic sphere” beyond the constraints of her home and society, while the fruit “is a symbol of extramarital relations.” The letter that she holds is a love letter either planning or continuing her illicit relationship. Tom Hunter re-imagines this image in current times showing a woman reading a possession order that tells her she has to leave her home.

“The balance is what I find most interesting: the friction between “is it staged or is it documentary”? I love documentary photography and I love staged photography, but I find the latter too unbelievable, as it becomes a bit too fantastical.”

Hunter uses natural lighting to hit the side of the woman’s face allowing for emphasis of her emotional state. Using a large-format camera, “which really captures that light”, he set the exposure for about a second. The ISO that Tom uses appears to be low as the image is mainly darker in tone. This is used as an advantage to give focus to where the light hits, the woman and the baby.

Creating paintings and creating photographs are two different processes. Often a painting presents what was truly seen at that moment in time but a photograph can be manipulated to show people what they want to see. Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original.

With the picture getting noticed by the council, Tom Hunter’s community managed to save the houses.

A2 Personal Investigation, Essay

Essay 1

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“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