The ‘People Make Jersey’ exhibition showcased within Jersey Museum, allowed us as students to explore the rich history Jersey contains as well as its vast number of occupants that have helped shape that history. This exhibition displayed just how much variety Jersey has in terms of culture, describing the Island as a mixing pot of people who have come from countries all over the world, or even people who’s families have been here for centuries. From visiting this exhibition I have learnt of the many different stories of migration that played a crucial part in creating Jersey’s cultural identity, varying from religious and political refugees to economic migrants.
One section of the ‘People make Jersey’ exhibition focused on the many ‘Alien’ registration cards, which were introduced in 1920 and issued to migrants who had relocated to Jersey. These cards displayed various pieces of information such as the profession, previous residence and nationality of the person, alongside an image of them. This therefore gives us a visual representation of the many different backgrounds and stories Jersey holds in small fragments. In addition, this also allowed for the public of Jersey to be given an opportunity to view images and information of distant family members, that established their roots on the island, for the first time, providing them a link to their diverse family histories.
Another section of the exhibition on the other hand, looked at family names that are often associated with being typical ‘Jersey’ names which contain a long line of family history on the island. Originally, these typical ‘Jersey’ names were in fact used to identify where certain immigrants were from, with names such as Le Breton, De Gruchy, Norman and more originating from various areas in France, and names such as Hamptonne, Le Gallais and Langlois originating across Great Britain. Even hundreds of years later after first arriving in Jersey, these predominant names can still be seen and recognised as an important part of the island, with establishments like Normans and De Gruchy, located in town, still running to this day.
However, when reflecting on the statement ‘Every Jersey resident has an immigration story – whether their family came here 500 years or five years ago. This exhibition explores some of these stories and the ways in which immigration has shaped and influenced the Island we know today.’ displayed within the exhibition, I found that the section that explained the English influence to Jersey life, to be personally the most interesting aspect. This is as although I was born on the island, the rest of my family originated mainly from Manchester and had no previous links with the island. I was even more so fascinated with the small piece of the exhibition that explained the introduction of the English education to the island, made first available to the boys at Victoria College, due to the fact that my mother first moved to the island to continue her career as a teacher, as a result of Jersey being in a shortage of the profession.
The exhibition is based on the fact that, “Every Jersey resident has a story of how they come to be living in the Island, whether their family came here 500 years ago or five years ago. ‘People Make Jersey’ explores some of these stories and the ways in which immigration has shaped and influenced the Island we know today.”
The oldest items in the exhibition belonged to Jersey’s first permanent settlers, who arrived around 7,000 years ago. The created basic stone tools and lived in a sheltered place where they could plant their crops and raise their families.
Picture of tools, Jadeite polished stone axe and ring. These would have been brought into Jersey from mainland France around 6,000 years ago.
It then follows the waves of immigrants who have arrived in Jersey over the centuries. Some of the people were religious, which introduced different cultures and beliefs into the island.
There was an glass display island in the exhibition which displayed lots of passport type cards. These were the Aliens registration cards, which show lots of French people living in Jersey in 1920.
There were also some residents from much further afield. Jersey in 1920 was a surprisingly international community. E.g. Belgium, Toulouse, and Czech Slovakia.
There was a wall which featured the current generation holding there ancestors registration cards, this was a good way to visualise the different cultures in Jersey and its history.
Near to the registration cards, there was a map on the wall, which mostly focused on France. It showed where some of the popular surnames originated from. In the old days the surname just meant where you were from, e.g. John Coutanche, who was from Coutances, France. These are all the names and places displayed on the map :
UK – LANGLOIS from England – LE GALLAIS from Wales – HAMPTONNE from Southampton
FRANCE – DE CARTERET from Carteret – DE LA HAYE from La Haye de Puits – DE GRUCHY from Gruchy – COUTANCHE from Coutances – LE BRETON from Brittany – NORMAN from Normandy – PERCHARD from the Perche region – LE POIDEVIN from Poitou – D’AUVERGNE from Auvergne region.
There was a wall that had items which people brought to Jersey when they first came. Each person had one item that had a significant value/memory to them. Some of the weird/interesting items was a, Potato grater, which was brought to Jersey from Poland by Karolina Klonowska, as it was very old and belonged to here grandmother, she brought it to Jersey so she could cook her favourite Polish dishes. There were other items such as dolls, passports and, musical instruments such as a flute.
Around the exhibition there were old images of Jersey maps, notes and news papers. I thought they were interesting as so much has changed over the years, for example the Waterfront wasn’t even there in the map, as it was build recently. These are the Old vs New comparisons using images from the exhibition and new versions from today.
OLD NEWSPAPER VS NEW NEWSPAPER
OLD MAP VS NEW MAP
OLD FRENCH MONEY
PHOTO SHOOTS
After the exhibition, we visited the Victorian part of the museum, and went on 2 walks round town. The first walk we were looking at the different types of bricks and stones in the buildings. There was this one building which have blue bricks that reflected in the sunlight (the building with the French flag). The second walk we went round town. This is a image of a map where we went. We took photos as we walked around town of the buildings and anything we saw, mainly focusing on:
MIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN ST HELIER – a sense of place – character of community – people, portraiture
EDITING IN LIGHTROOM CLASSIC
I imported all my images into Lightroom from the museum trip on the 7th June.
This is the selected flagged images, that use the p (pick) and x (reject). The white flag is placed on the good images, where as a black flag on the rejected images. I used this to filter all my images, which was around 300 to get it down to 10-30 good images.
I did basic adjustments to the images, increasing clarity, decreasing dehaze, increasing contrast etc. Including gradient and radial filters.
I took some of the images into Photoshop (using edit in –> Adobe Photoshop, option in Lightroom) and removed distracting elements such as ropes and security cameras.
I tried a black and white, (monochrome) look to see if it would add more drama and create a moody atmosphere.
Then I used Lightroom compare view to compare the edited black and white image with the edited colour image.
Portrait – I like how the black and white brings out the details, and adds more age to the image. This works well due to the subject being of age. Although, I prefer the colour version as it shows more personality, which is crucial in portrait photography. The detail in his eyes and mouth is more defined in the coloured image, the colours also create depth, which is hidden in the black and white version.
Detailed Image – There is lots of detail so, the black and white image separates the whites and the blacks making them more defined creating depth. It gives a cleaner look the the image, but this is not the aesthetic I wanted as it is a messy, dirty building site. Which is why I like the coloured image more, as I shows sections of dull colour between the metal poles.
Fast Shutter Speed Image – This image shows motion in the faster flying birds, whist still freezing time as the birds fly. I like this image better in black and white, as there is more contrast and detail, compared to the coloured version. It also helps bring out the shadows in the birds more.
CHOOSING MY FINAL IMAGES
Lightroom made it easier to see all my images, as they were all in one place. Lightroom has different view features, such as, full screen, compare view, and survey view.
I used the survey view to display my good images, them I ordered them best to work using the star system inside Lightroom.
The purple colour tagged image was the best/my favourite, so I marked it 5 stars. This becomes useful when I have to make a zine, so I can just filter by 4+ stars, so I get my best images.
I colour coded my images based on its topic. Ill will try to keep it consistent throughout to year, so it is easier to find images.
The colours are: – Yellow – Indoors – Green – Outdoors – Red – Portrait (environmental) / People – Purple – Black and white photography
These are the final images in Lightroom, I then exported them into my PHOTO-SHOOTS folder in a sub-folder called June 7th Edits.
FINAL IMAGES
The larger images are my favourite ones, as there have a really nice compositions and colour.
Overall, there was a good variety of images, consisting of portraits and street photography. My favourite type is street photography, just walking around and using temporary objects to create foreground elements, since I use angles, reflections, and shapes to create my images, E.g. the car reflection in the orange street art image.
On Monday the 7th June we met at the Jersey Museum so that we could see the last day of the exhibition to do with Identity and Community. The exhibition was to do with the history of immigration from different parts of the world and the stories behind those who came here. This included historical information from the 1800 – 1900’s and information from the first and Second World War. The idea of the exhibition was to hear the stories from people who came 500 years ago or 5 years ago and how ‘People make Jersey’. We went to the exhibit at 9 am on Monday the 7th to see the last day of the exhibit before it was taken down.
The exhibit had information about settlers in Jersey spanning from recent settlers and settlers up to 7,000 years ago.
Above I have grouped the images I took at the museum showing the idea of identity and backgrounds of people in Jersey. I took photos of some of the people of Jersey talking about their heritage but also examples of how the non-native people were treated. To the bottom right of the images above, there are small coloured cars given to people coming to Jersey to live called “Alien Cards”.
Above I have grouped images I took of maps new vs old and examples of old publications. It shows a newspaper and book as well as a map of France and England showing where the origins of “Jersey” names come from. I am interested by the maps as it shows how much we have changed the layout of St Helier. It is also interesting that we have reclaimed land and built more space for Jersey to spread and thrive.
Finally, above I grouped photos that were historical items you wouldn’t see now for example a pair of old clogs, old money, an old accordion, an old crown and finally a stone age flint tool. This shows the diversity in the past of Jersey and how it was influenced by people who came from many different places.
My Images
After taking photos inside the museum, we moved on to take photos in town to look at the different sections of town that were for the different migrant communities. On the first walk we went on, we went from the Jersey Museum to the St Helier Church.
Lightroom
From the 400 images I took on the first photo shoot, I only flagged 51 that I liked and may wanted to use. I then filtered them down into red green and yellow. I only edited the yellow and green rated images. This left me with a final 16 images to edit.
To edit the image above, I applied the vivid colour filter and increased vibrance/ hue slightly to make the colours more vivid.
Artist Inspirations – Niall McDiarmid
Who is Niall McDiarmid?
Niall McDiarmid is a Scottish photographer and he mainly documents the people and landscape of Britain. McDiarmid was born in 1967 in Scotland and over his photography career has had his work shown at the Museum of London, Bristol and the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Mood Board
McDiarmid positioned the subjects to be in the centre and slightly to the right of centre. The camera is also zoomed out slightly so we can still see the facial expression of the main subject but also the background of the natural street showing people doing their own things.
The subject is being naturally lit but some parts of the image are quite dark. The colour yellow is used as a form of repetition in the image and appears multiple times. Firstly the subject is wearing a yellow jumper. He also appears to have yellow tobacco and another box that is yellow. The van behind him is yellow and the flag behind him is also yellow. I believe this repetition is used to show how the subject is different from other people who aren’t wearing yellow in the background behind him.
