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Opening quote

INTRODUCTION
In order to approach my personal study, I will be focusing on 3 main concepts, the housing crisis, nostalgia and control. A topic which I am highly interested in and am willing to explore is the housing crisis which affects a large population of Jersey, not only the immigrants but young people and the elderly all face institutional discrimination which makes it extremely difficult to get on the property ladder or be able to find housing in Jersey. There is an extreme lack of affordable housing for low income families and young people alike, who start out on the bottom earning minimum wage at the start of their careers. With the use of film, an older method of photography, I am hoping to capture images that capture a nostalgic and reminiscing feel. The fuzziness and grain which can be captured using this flash provokes ideas of the old and outdated, much like the housing in Jersey, lacking houses and slats which are safe and regulated for people to live in.

A prominent photographer which links to my area of study is Nick Hedges, photographing and recording of social housing in post WW2 Britain in the 60’s and 70’s. Mikhael Subotzky is also a photographer who closely ties in with the topics which I will be tackling, taking striking images of a high rise, low cost housing in the heart of South Africa. Using both candid photography and the surrealism of the architecture of the building, creating a photo book tackling the subject. The themes and subjects which both these photographers tackle closely tie in with the overall focus of my personal project, taking a documentary style, biographical approach to their work.

In order to respond to my personal study I will be employing the use of both a film camera and digital camera. As I will be using the theme of nostalgia, the use of a film camera will be an effective way to display this through the grainy and soft nature of the photos themselves. The subject of my images will be of the low cost, affordable housing which can be rented in Jersey. I will be contacting estate agents in order to show the contrast of the way in which housing agents glorify these homes versus what the reality of them are. I will be focusing on small and minor details which distinguish each property such as the flooring, bathrooms and kitchen cabinet. I will also be photographing the exterior of buildings, going around the dingier parts of St.Helier which depict the depressing lifestyle some people face by living in the center.

PG 1: HOUSING CRISIS:

According to a report from Statistics Jersey, shortages are now predicted for every size of flat and house, with the exception of a small surplus (70) in the number of large homes of four or more bedrooms. And the situation has worsened considerably since the last Future Housing Needs report was issued, covering 2015-2018, with almost twice as many more homes now needed. The gap between the number of people looking for homes and the number of homes available widened by 90%. I will be investigating the state of social housing, their conditions and the impact which it has on individuals for whom this is their reality, specifically interviewing my mother who intersection-ally falls under a migrant and single mother. I will be examining the personal impact which the housing crisis has on my family.

Taking a documentary photography approach to this subject, my work will be following the conventions of realism. The idea that picture knowledge could be universal relates to what is known in philosophy as the ‘realist’ approach. Realism is the idea that a photograph of an object or a person bears a close relationship to that object or person. There is a link between the object or person photographed, and the photograph. The photograph, in other words, is a trace of something real. Because it was necessary for the object or person to be present at the moment of photographic recording, we can also say that there is a link between the photograph and the events, objects, people, etc., it depicts. Examining the work of Nick Hedges, there is a clear link between my own personal study and the depictions which I aim to imitate in terms of contextual aspects and intent. I will be comparing two works from Nick Hedges, from the exhibition ‘Make Life Worth Living’, It was commissioned by Shelter, a charity working against homelessness to raise consciousness about the poor living conditions many Britons experience. The photographs were taken between 1968 and 1972 and are an intimate glimpse in to the human cost of bad housing.

Pg 2: NOSTALGIA:

Due to the contextual time period of these images, a sense of nostalgia is provoked through the critical use of lettering and composition. By displaying the photograph alongside related images and Shelter publications, it is possible to expand its narrative. A richer understanding of the final print is made possible. It is also interesting to see how the charity used Hedges’ photographs in their publications, and how they framed them with case studies which included interviews with subjects. A comparison between the contact print and the final print raises questions about the nature of photographic truth, and how the photographer’s intentions shaped his representation of the homeless. The significance of the formal qualities of the final print as it appears in the Shelter report (it is much grainier than the contact print, and has a heightened contrast) is also relevant to a discussion of the photograph’s semiotic effect creating meaning from the contextualization of the images. By including excerpts from interviews in interpretation panels, details about subjects are made accessible, despite remaining anonymous (Shelter used pseudonyms in their campaigns). The biographical information about the subjects of the Shelter photographs, published in reports and displayed in exhibitions, is fundamental to the kinds of narrative generated by Hedges’ photographs.

Pg 3: Your responses

Conclusion

Bibliography

Paragraph 1 Structure (500 words) : Use subheading. This paragraph covers the first thing you said in your introduction that you would address. The first sentence introduces the main idea of the paragraph. Other sentences develop the subject of the paragraph.

Content: you could look at the following…exemplify your hypothesis within a historical and theoretical context.  Write about how your area of study and own work is linked to a specific art movement/ ism. Research and read key text and articles from critics, historians and artists associated with the movement/ism. Use quotes from sources to make a point, back it up with evidence or an example (a photograph), explain how the image supports the point made or how your interpretation of the work may disapprove. How does the photograph compare or contrast with others made by the same photographer, or to other images made in the same period or of the same genre by other artists. How does the photograph relate to visual representation in general, and in particularly to the history and theory of photography, arts and culture.

Joanna is a polish photographer born in 1985 in Warsaw, now based in London. In 2013, she gained a Master Of Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art in London. Not long after in 2014 she created ‘Frowst’ as her first debut, which is a series of staged family portraits in a large black and white format, this collection went on to win the first book Award the same year.

‘FROWST which means stuffy or stiffly, captures the paradoxical nature of a home. Warm and cozy, a frowsty space can also feel airless and uncomfortable. The space of intimacy is often suffocating, but its comfortable security might trap us inside longer than we wish. It allows us to manifest our vulnerabilities and weaknesses under the safe roof of domestic convenience.’

The book is comprised of twenty-five photographs, arranged in a minimalist way, usually a photo per spread. I take inspiration from this as I want to have a few blank pages to create tension between images. Her images are tableaux as as she sets them up deliberately, creating mise-en-scene. At first sight they are simple, casual pictures but soon reveal the surgical precision of the staged situation.

http://joannapiotrowska.com/ReflectsonFrowst.html

Her images first striked me as uncomfortable, the way a fully grown woman was sitting on an older mans lap. The theme throughout the book is consistent as she recreates relations within a household. She uses domestic settings such as a kitchen or bedroom as the background for these unsettling images. The black and white adds to the sense of reminiscing and remembering a time in which we were young and certain situations weren’t awkward or weird at the time. I am going to use black and white for the majority of my images as they represent memories from my past. The book highlights the carelessness of being a child, the lack of social consciousness we had at this early stage of life. I am going to use her concept to recreate memories from my childhood for images in my photo book. Her theme of family fits perfectly into my book which surrounds the theme of divorce. In her book she creates forts out of cushions and chairs as you did as a child and places the subject underneath them. These images create a sense of playfulness and reminiscing, but there is more depth to their meaning. “The shelter is like a fortress for our bodies, an extension of our selves. It is about how we choose to live, what we’ve surrounded ourselves with,” she says. “It’s also a little absurd that an adult is building this temporary, fragile structure. It isn’t really giving us any protection because it’s so ad hoc.” Joanna is taking a childhood past time and relating it to our behaviour as adults and how anything we do has a effect on us. The forts we once made weren’t just for fun, they were security we build for ourselves.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/07/we-need-to-defend-ourselves-joanna-piotrowska-family-photographs-tate-britain

SHOOT 1:

• WHERE: Within my personal study, I will be focusing on 3 main areas of study , personal, external and internal. The persona aspect of my project I will be looking at my own personal journey and the ways in which my family has occupied Jersey, capturing images of my own home. The external aspect of my project will be focusing on the exterior aesthetic o low cost housing within Jersey. Lastly the interior aspect of my project will done within empty properties, arranging viewings with estate agents in order to do so. 

• WHEN: in order to capture the exterior photo shoots, I will be attempting to capture them during more gloomy and overcast days as I feel this will add to the themes associated with the topic at hand which is all about control and institutional discrimination. 

• WHO: My project will be focusing less on people but rather places, I will be using documentary style photography in order to carry out my shoots, focusing on the state of the housing market and the truth of affordable housing. 

• WHY: The topic at hand is personal to both me and a large population of Jersey. Immigrants, young people and the elderly, making it almost out of reach to buy or rent property which lives up to suitable standards. 

• HOW: I will be using a mixture of both film and digital photography in order to carry out my photo shoots. A theme which I also want to convey through my work photography as it will be linking to the impacts of trauma and childhood. 

SHOOT 2:

WHERE: Going forward after my first photo shoot, I will be conducing these within the rental properties which are available in Jersey. Mostly focusing on property in St.Helier as this tends to be the area with the largest concentration of immigrants and affordable housing.

WHEN: In order to achieve quality imagery, I will attempt to capture the images during daytime, retaining natural lighting within the images.

WHO: Much like the first photo shoot, I will be focusing on places rather than people so therefore my imagery will be solely focused on the interior of properties. Looking at small details such as the kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms etc.

WHY: A topic which I am highly interested in and am willing to explore is the housing crisis which affects a large population of Jersey, not only the immigrants but young people and the elderly all face institutional discrimination which makes it extremely difficult to get on the property ladder or be able to find housing in Jersey. There is an extreme lack of affordable housing for low income families and young people alike, who start out on the bottom earning minimum wage at the start of their careers.

HOW: Taking into mind the logistical problems associated with capturing and developing film, for the remainder for my shoots I will be using a digital camera in order to capture my shoots. Although it may not be authentic, there are methods which can be used with editing techniques which can give the same aesthetic qualities as print film.

SHOOT 3:

Repeating the steps taken in shoot 2, I will be conducting further shoots taken within rental properties which will allow me to gain a variety of resources and use these in order to create a narrative and conclude what I have seen.

SHOOT 4:

Repeating the steps taken in shoot 2 and 3, I will be conducting further shoots taken within rental properties which will allow me to gain a variety of resources and use these in order to create a narrative and conclude what I have seen.

SHOOT 5:

In my final shoot I will be focusing on my own home, taking the same approach of documentary photography as in shoot 2,3 and 4. This shoot will allow me to create a cyclical narrative, using the internal, external and personal narratives within my personal study.

This image contrast between his parents wedding, which is meant to be the happiest day of they lives, and his mother alone on a beach, with no one but the memory of her husband, seems sentimental but also harsh. The layering of the images allow their lives to be to close but also so separate from each other which is how someone does feel during divorce. This image could be showing Fujii’s desire for his family to be whole again but as reviewer Alexander Strecker says it is merely “fragments of that which was” (Strecker, A). This book could be Fujii’s way of coping as the book is so personal and intimate. Strecker claims the book is a “reconstructed journal of this separation” (Strecker, A), however I believe rather than being a journalisms of the separation, I believe it is more like a journal of coping with the change. The book itself is broken, with a split in the centre, forever keeping his mum and dad separated, a tragic thought for those who know hat its like for parents to separate. The archive images used so frequently are almost a form of grounding. It is continually reminding a viewer of the past happiness making the separation and loss so much greater. The handmade fragile book really encompasses the fragility of life friendship and love.

To what extent does Surrealism create an unconscious representation of ones inner conflicts of identity and belonging?

In 1917 surrealism was first seen in the form of art through the work of Giorgio de Chirico, who illustrated average streets but through a hallucination perspective. His paintings were moving away from realism, instead of just capturing physically what was there he also created subjective meanings within his art. Andre Baton was the original inventor of surrealist concepts in 1924 through his written surrealist manifesto, where the he describes the movement as ‘the pure psychic automatism expressed in the real functionality of a person.’ (History.com editors 2017:1). Breton was saying that a surrealist artist must bypass any thoughts of rationality in order to gain automatism which is an act or idea achieved through the unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud may have not been an artist but his development and exploration into how the mind works was a large influence. This Little Hans study into dream analysis and phobias opened doors into the world of unconscious thoughts and desires, he uncovered areas in psychology and philosophy that hadn’t ever been discovered before due to the idea that is wasn’t ‘scientific’ research. Similarly, in surrealist work can be seen as ‘unscientific’ because it doesn’t follow a strict structure like realism once did, rather it used the unconscious mind as the force behind the influence.  

Dadaism was an early stage of surrealism that commenced during World War I, its purpose was to ridicule the meaningless of the modern world. The whole concept was formed to deconstruct the definition of art by experimenting with different techniques, materials and mediums. Photo montage became popular through Dadaists such as Raoul Hausmann and his piece ‘The Art Critic’. The montage was used as a means of expressing political dissent. Other techniques were invented such as collage which is widely known today as assembling different elements to create a whole, Max Ernst famously created ‘ The Hat Makes the Man’. Cubomania is a form of collage where an image is cut into squares and reassembled randomly. This technique was invented by Romanian Surrealist artist Gherasim Luca. Surrealism began to emerge into photography through artists such as Maurice Tabard and Man Ray who explored automatic writing using techniques such as combination printing and double exposure. In the early 1920s, technology was developing rapidly and became of great interest to avant-garde artists due to its association with technology. Photography was beginning to become a chance for artists paradigms of vision and representation. The evolution of the camera worked in harmony with the movement from realism to surrealism, as technology modernized so did ideologies. 

I took some archival images from photo albums, during times where I was too young to understand the complex nature of having divorce. I painted my finger tips with black ink and transferred it onto white paper, then I roughly cut them out. I placed my fingerprints on top of the faces in each image and took a photo. I wanted to include old photos as well as keeping my theme of lack of identity. I used the fingerprints to not only cover up the face but a metaphor for family. This concept is similar to my earlier blood photoshoot and how our family share genetics. In our modern day you can make a name for yourself, but it hasn’t always been like that. You weren’t judged based on your own image, you were judged based on your family, whether they were rich or poor.

Text Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/aug/18/historybooks.highereducation

http://www.minamomeni.com/capturing-the-truth.html

Harvard System of Referencing

Bibliography:

Pultz, J.(1995).Photography And The Body.London:Weidendelf and Nicolson

Quote Inside Text:

“Documentary photograph is a picture of the living world captured by a photographer whose intention is to describe reality and transfer some important message or tell a story.”

—————– critic says “She was concerned with the female body’s representation in the media and in art.” (Pultz 1995:128-130) ——————-Comment/opinion of quote written above.