HOUSING CRISIS IN JERSEY:

A topic which I personally extremely interested in is the housing crisis in Jersey and the lack of affordable housing for the middle class population living here. As a young person who is wanting to live and stay in Jersey, I am keen to explore the difficulties sand extreme challenges faced by my generation to get onto the property ladder. 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%. The news comes as a former assistant minister said the States were drastically failing to meet its commitments to provide affordable homes. The dearth of properties will be worst in the owner-occupier sector, where there is predicted to be 1,830 fewer homes available than households wishing to buy or move, with the biggest shortfall being in the three-bedroom category. The report makes a number of predictions based on different inward migration figures, but every scenario between now and 2021 forecasts more demand for homes that the Island can supply. These projections are based on numbers before various building projects intended to increase supply are completed, Statistics Jersey noted.

In the registered accommodation sector, there is expected to be a shortfall of 600 units, with two-bedroom homes in most demand.In the previous report covering 2015-2018, there was a projected surplus in registered accommodation, but ‘the latest potential shortfall has been largely driven by recent levels of migration’, Statistics Jersey said. Qualified accommodation numbers are expected to be less affected by migration trends and no shortfall is predicted in the supply of larger homes of four or more bedrooms, where a small surplus is predicted. According to the report, there will be 70 more homes in this category than needed. However, there could be a shortage of over 1,000 three-bedroom units and 900 two-bedroom homes. The private rental market is also predicted to fall short of demand by nearly 500 houses of all sizes – except those over four bedrooms. However, a surplus of flats of two bedrooms or less is predicted. And while there may be a surplus of flats for social housing, there will be a shortfall of 160 houses in that category.

Migration is expected to fuel most of this burgeoning demand in the next three years, with almost a third coming from newcomers to the Island. Of that demand, 70% will be looking for registered accommodation and most will be seeking one-bedroom housing, according to the report.

SHARON O’NEILL:

Ringing all the doorbells on her estate one by one, Sharon O’Neill was glad to find almost everyone welcomed her into their flats to take a snapshot into their lives. ‘Flats’, a touching artistic project looking at the diverse population of the Fitzhugh Estate in Wandsworth, south London – where O’Neill has lived for 12 years – proved to be a great way to get to know people around her.

NICK HEDGES:

Photographer Nick Hedges spent three years visiting areas of deprivation throughout the UK to create this seminal body of work for the housing charity Shelter. Launched in December 1966 (the same month as Ken Loach’s influential television drama ‘Cathy Come Home’) the charity’s campaign put paid to the myth that only people living on the streets were homeless. Hedges’ photographs were central to its message. He photographed slum housing in major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and London, documenting the distressing conditions faced by more than three million people.

Mood Board:

A 2010 graduate of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (ENSP), Dorothée Smith was the breakout star of the Rencontres d’Arles 2012. This 27-year old photographer surprised and charmed viewers with her portraits of teenagers coming to terms with their own sexuality, diaphanous beings inhabiting changing bodies, pushing the boundaries of the masculine and the feminine towards a new gender defying the laws of nature. Smith works around the notion of gender which she tries to deconstruct in her work.

Her work can be seen as an observation of constructions, deconstructions, displacements, and transformations of identity. Photography here rubs shoulders with video, hybrid art and the use of new technologies, and has led to collaboration with a research team from the CNRS/IRCICA (French National Center for Scientific Research) in 2012.

A lot of her photos feature the LGBTQ+ community which shows her diversity of different communities in her work. Her photos are also very personal as the models are usually topless or in underwear, showing the vulnerability of the models and LGBTQ+ community. Also in her work, you can see a lot of intimate scenes, which is what I also want to show in my work.

Photo Analysis:

Technical:

This image looks like it was taken with natural light to capture the raw moment. This image is quite under exposed to give a more saturated feel to it. The aperture for this photo is very quite high and the depth of field is quite sharp. Also, the ISO will be around 400 and the white balance looks to be either daylight or shade.

Visual:

The colour of this photo is very saturated and is quite dark to give it a ominous and mysterious look to it. Also the cropping of this photo leads the eye to the person sitting on the bed. Also, the person being the main thing in the photo makes it stand out a lot, putting the person next to a white wall also helped them stand out.

Contextual:

The historical context of gender is very taboo and Smith tries to go against general stereotypes of gender and the law of nature. Also, all her models are in the LGBTQ+ community, which shows the diversity of different people in that community which again challenges gender.

Conceptual:

Her work portrays teenagers coming to terms with their own sexuality, diaphanous beings inhabiting changing bodies and pushing the boundaries of the masculine and the feminine towards a new gender defying the laws of nature. Her work is around the notion of gender which she tries to deconstruct in her photos.

For this the project of Occupation VS Liberation, I have learnt a lot of new skills such as learning how to properly use InDesign, how to get the best lighting for photos, how to tell a story and produce a narrative in my zines, learnt more about archives and the history of Jersey occupation in WW2 and how to use light room. The part I enjoyed the most was making and designing my zine as I liked making it visually aesthetic and making a story. To develop my personal study I will research different photographers and take inspiration from past students work to spark an idea that I can work with.

The themes that have inspired me the most were portraits as I would like to explore intimacy with a person and the camera. Also self portraits are something that I would like to experiment with as I am really interested in this method of photography. Jude Luce (a past student from Hautlieu) has inspired me to experiment with love and vulnerability which is something I also experience everyday. I would also like to experiment with gifs and photo montage as these methods are something I like to use in my own work. Another idea I want to explore is abstract portrait photography. Some key photographers that I would like to do research on are Nan Goldin, Larry Sultan, Yael Malka, David Kirscher, Lin Zhipeng and Dorothée Smith.

Photographing WW2 Objects:

When photographing objects from WW2 I learnt more about still life and the techniques used for this art style. I also learnt how to use the flash light with a camera and how to use a coloured backdrop.

See: 21. Reviewing and Reflecting:

Statement of Intent:

For my personal study I want to focus on mental health, specifically, what its like to experience a mental illness such as, anxiety and depression. For this reason my study to focus more on the ‘Occupation’ side of the theme. I hope to use my images to give people a better understanding of what mental illness is like for a student.

Artist references:

• Francesca Woodman
• Mary Ellen Mark (Ward 81)
• Maren Klemp

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I intent to do at least one shoot for each artist, repeating shoots for the artist that I think will best fit my ideas.

In order to get a first interpretation of what Occupation and Liberation are, I researched about them and made mind maps on aspects which would be included in the subjects. Following this took place in an independent study where I looked at previous students work in order to grasp knowledge of the different types of photo books as well as give me inspirations to my own.

Looking at the aspects above have allowed me to focus on the ‘Occupation’ aspect of the course. This will be done through expressing fashion and dance in the same photo shoot. I feel as if doing this subject is a good idea for me as dance is personal to me and adding an element of fashion into it would allow me to explore both dance, portrait, fashion and still life photographers. When looking at these subjects I feel as if i would like to separate each shoot I create in order to show a narrative throughout the book. However, to do this I will combine all the different shoots together (ie, not separate each shoot to a certain section of the book) which will allow for each shoot to be linked and create smaller stories within my whole photo book. I will do this throughout three different shoots which will all be taken in a different style to another to create the intended narrative of me sharing my dance journey growing up and photographing the different elements such as accessories/ medals/ etc to include sentimental elements which have been important in my process. The first shoot I plan to take images in the photographing studio of ‘Archival Images’ both from when I was younger and at my age now as I feel as if this will allow me to show important aspects which would have been photographed such as my first ballet exam, my first dance competition, my best award etc. these imaged will be taken from a bird eye view and I feel as if this shoot will create a strong basis to work from in my project as I would like to combine this with my second photoshoot which will be a still-life object set up. Carrying on with this, during my second shoot I plan to take images from a straight on angle in the photography studio where I will showcase the important objects that have encouraged me to carrying on dancing all these years. These objects will include elements such as certificates, medals, trophies, magazines, newspaper articles, exam notes, CDs, ballet shoes etc. Following this, I intend to use my camera ability to photograph images of old costumes when I was younger as well as ones which are being used at the moment in order to include an element of fashion into this narrative as the audience will be able to see that costuming has grown over the last ten years, while still relating to the overall narrative. As previously mentioned, I will combine all these shoots during my photo book as I would like for there to be a relation between archival images, objects and costuming to show a time period of my life throughout different occupations.

I overall feel as if this will be a strong idea for my project as it is very personal to me, therefore meaning that I will be able to create relevant analysis and images.

Small Plan of Each Shoot

First Shoot- For my first shoot towards my photo book, I intended to have an introductory page which will be the first written page of the book. This will explain a little about the images on following pages in order to have both a text explanation as well as a photo evidence of the time period. The actual shoot its self will be taken on a birds eye view to allow for the printed images to be seen clearly with a white background to add simplicity to the images as I don’t want there to be distractions to the relevant images. I will use this shoot to allow me to show dance performances when I was younger, as well as to show the audience the style of costumes I wore in those days etc.

To go along with this idea, I found a female photographer named Diana Markosian who I will use as an artist reference towards my project so that I know more about archival imagery.

Second Shoot- For my second shoot, I plan to use the same location of the photography studio however will be using a straight on angle in order to allow for the objects I will be taking to be seen. During this shoot I will take fully focused images of different objects which are important to me growing up as a dancer. These objects will be items such as certificates, medals, trophies, magazines, newspaper articles, exam notes, CDs, ballet shoes etc and will be in important part in the photo book. I feel as if this is a good idea as I can match my archival images to items in this shoot (example, if I have a archival image of me wearing a blue costume with a blue hair piece, I can photograph the hair piece In this shoot as a representation of that initial time, as well as the certificate which I received for that dance.) I feel as this will allow me to make an aesthetically pleasing selection of images.

To go along with this idea, I will be researching on still life photography as a whole in order to gain an idea of what still life is, how it was originally photographed and now it is these days, as well as the best type of angles to use for these type of images.

Third Shoot- To carry on sentimental values in photography, I intend to use self portraiture as a way of showing myself in my recent costumes which would have been previously seen in archival images to be able to section these shoots together more and create a set of images. I think that showing costuming is a good way to showcasing development of fashion which will be my main subject in this particular shoot as the different costumes can be seen as a documentation as to how style has changed. As for the smaller costumes I won’t be able to fit into anymore, I will photographer them in front of a white canvas in the photography studio to allow for them to be seen, as well as creating detailed images from these.

In order to support the idea of Fashion, artist Hasson Hajjaj who explores fashion in her photography will be my inspiration for this last shoot.

My personal study is based on divorce and separation. I will be exploring how a split between two people can affect a whole family. My idea links to the occupation vs liberation theme, the occupation connects to before the divorce and how my parents felt uneased in each others company. The liberation relates to how the split was for the best for my parents but it also created a lot of changed and instability for me. Via my personal experience I am going to create images that display feelings of lack of identity and belonging. Divorce is such a common action these days that it gets overlooked, I want to highlight that although its not an abnormal family situation, it is still life changing. I’m going to take a documentary approach by taking picture of old house I have lived in, old toys and old photos that remind of the times where I missed either my mum or dad. After I am going to explore surrealism and post-modernism approaches to represent my inner conflict during the divorce. I am going to hold interviews with my parent about their experience as well as some of my friends with divorced parents and some with parents still together. These interviews will help to give me a more accurate representation of divorce as everyone takes it differently also it will provide me with different viewpoints by also interviewing my parents.

My first shoot will inspired be by surrealist photographer Chris McKenney. His ‘Self-Ghost’s’ project is a representation of the supernatural and horror genre, which is what I want to use as it lacks identity even though his images are portraits. I am going to take my brother to a forest or nature filled backdrop similar to McKenney and place a sheet on his head to hid this face. A box is going to present in those images as it represents how I have to pack up my belongings everytime I go to my mums or dads and to express how many times I have moved house. Hopefully, I will highlight the idea that you can pack your whole life into cardboard boxes and each time it gets harder because as soon as you have settled another box appears. .I am then going to stray away from McKenney’s supernatural approach and take pictures of my brothers hands on trees, then up against the semi-see through windows in the bathroom.