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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
COMMUNITIES COLLECTIVES & COLLABORATION 4 OCTOBER – 2 NOVEMBER 2014 #BPB14 bpb.org.uk
RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
CONTENTS 03 Introduction 04 How to use this resource 05 Events & Activities 06 Planning a visit 07 Brighton Photo Biennial 2014 08 Exhibition Highlights 17 Some BPB14 themes: 17 Community 19 Collaboration 21 Documentary Photography 22 Collectives 24 Photography, truth and fiction 25 Simple Activities 26 Further Reading & Resources
Cover image: © Jan von Holleben TAA_machine_06 from The Amazing Analogue: How we play photography, 2014 Co-commissioned by Hove Museum and Photoworks for Brighton Photo Biennial
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
INTRODUCTION
Brighton Photo Biennial, the UK’s largest international photography festival, returns for its sixth edition. For BPB14, we break with the single curator model and instead we are working in close partnership with a host of regional, national and international collaborators to develop a series of new projects on the theme of Communities, Collectives & Collaboration. BPB14 embraces novel perspectives and fresh approaches to generate commissions, new work and represent archive material. Designed to inspire, challenge and celebrate the most democratic medium of our age, BPB14 takes place online and in public spaces, galleries and pop-up venues across Brighton & Hove and beyond, involving more than 45 photographers and collaborators all bound by a common approach. Featuring re-discovered archives premiering new commissions, BPB14 addresses the role of photography across genres and includes established and emerging talent, across communities and continents. Photography is explored as prints, projections, pixels and pages. The core programme takes place throughout October and offers a packed schedule of workshops, talks, screenings and other events to complement the exhibitions, ensuring everyone – whatever their level of interest or expertise, can participate in BPB14.
© Sirkka Liisa Konttinen, Girl On a Spacehopper 1971
The festival is produced by Photoworks, an organisation dedicated to enabling participation in photography. Our programme includes commissions, publishing and participation. In collaboration with our partners, Photoworks connects outstanding artists with audiences and champions talent and ambition. www.photoworks.org.uk Photoworks is a National Portfolio Organisation supported by Arts Council England
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
HOW TO USE THIS RESOURCE The pack offers ideas and information for teachers planning a group visit to BPB14. It highlights some of the key concepts of the Biennial, suggesting ways of engaging students in the gallery, themes to consider, and questions to ask. The themes represent an indication of potential learning opportunities, and the questions intended as prompts for further discussion.
It is aimed at primary, secondary and FE teachers, with information suitable for adaptation at different levels. The pack is relevant mainly within the Art & Design, Photography, English, and Media Studies curriculum. However, teachers of other subjects and age groups may also find it useful. Curriculum links The pack does not presume to make explicit curriculum links, but the themes outlined are appropriate for embedding within a variety of different schemes of work at different levels of study. bpb.org.uk/2014 The Biennial website provides the most up to date information about what’s on during the festival. The website contains further details about artists and exhibitions, along with practical information, such as maps, opening times, contact information and event booking details.
Lost City, Laudium Bus Depot © Lathigra/Sekgala 2014
Get Involved The Festival includes digital opportunities for participation. Take part in a competition, share your own work, or join the debate. Visit bpb.org.uk/2014/whats-on/ for details.
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
EVENTS & ACTIVITIES
SPACE TO COLLABORATE: PHOTOGRAPHY & COLLABORATION IN THE CLASSROOM Wednesday 8 October 4pm – 6pm Artist and experienced trainer Annis Joslin leads a CPD session for primary and secondary school teachers from diverse subject backgrounds and will explore a range of practical approaches to engaging with contemporary photographic practice in the gallery or classroom.
The Royal BBQ #3 Ellie Golby, Lola Gurr, Chelsie Henley, Vanessa Evans © Marysa Dowling
The Biennial team and partner venues have organised a programme of events and activities, many of which are appropriate for school and college groups. Visit bpb.org.uk for full details of talks, workshops seminars and events.
The session will focus on collaborative approaches in photography. Acknowledging that many children and young people engage daily with photography via camera phones and photo sharing services like Instagram and Flickr, the session will explore how to employ these experiences towards more creative, collaborative and critical ways of thinking. The session will include case study examples, practical tips and a chance for participants to try out various approaches for themselves. Guided tours for schools and groups We can devise a tour tailored to your group. If you would like a guided tour of any of this year’s exhibitions during your group visit, email
[email protected] Please note: there will be a charge for this offer. Group booking discounts We are able to offer a discount to large group bookings to some BPB14 events. Please email
[email protected] for details.
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
PLANNING A VISIT
Make an advance visit Although it’s not always possible, we would suggest that you visit the venue yourself before bringing a group so that you know what to expect, and are fully aware of any potentially difficult images, the layout and size of the space, and how you think your group might work in the space. Use our website bpb.org.uk/2014 provides all the information you will need when planning a visit including opening times, exhibition information, and contact details. BUT, please ensure you also contact the venue directly to book your visit and check details to avoid clashes with other groups and ensure you don’t miss out on any available events and opportunities. In addition, the website contains comprehensive information about each of the exhibiting artists. Booking information Admission is free to most exhibitions. However, we strongly recommend contacting the education team at the venue well in advance of your visit to let them know you are coming. Opening times vary at each venue. Some venues are offering tours and activities for school/college groups. Visit bpb.org.uk/2014 for information on venue contact details and maps.
Please note: Some venues are closed Mondays and/or Tuesdays. Please check before you visit. Some exhibitions are unsuitable for young people under the age of 15 due to graphic content. These include: Amore e Piombo at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, and RUIDO Photo in Circus Street, Old Market and some images in So like You by Erica Scourti at the University of Brighton Gallery. Please email education@photoworks. org.uk for more information. Brighton Photo Fringe Running alongside Brighton Photo Biennial is the Brighton Photo Fringe, which works with photographers and curators who have attained national recognition as well as emerging photographers. The BPF14 events programme includes over 80 exhibitions and events, including pop-up displays, panel discussions, workshops, talks, guided tours, participatory events and a book fair. Any visit to Brighton to see the Biennial should definitely include a trip to some of the Fringe shows. Visit photofringe.org for full programme details.
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 Introducing the theme of Communities, Collectives & Collaboration, BPB14 presents a series of remarkable exhibitions and events. All are bound together by a common approach – photography-based projects produced through innovative, new and unexpected partnerships. This includes international photographers and artists collaborating with environmentalists, scientists, young and older people, photo and film archives, local and international communities, and digital networks. From collusion and intrusion in paparazzi photography to live underwater cameras recording the creation of an artificial reef, to connect and disconnect in communities, to explorations of national and international photography collectives, to ambitious participatory projects, BPB14 presents previously unseen perspectives on photography. Prompting questions around custodianship, authorship, mythologies, image-making, sharing and collaborative processes, BPB14 explores photography’s role in relation to these larger ideas.
The core programme includes 19 exhibitions and more than 50 events geared towards different interests, experience and ages, offering many opportunities to get involved and participate, including workshops, talks, tours, screenings and online digital projects. To find out more, pick up the BPB14 programme guide. The BPB14 team is on hand during October at our pop-up shop and information hubs at the Jubilee Library and Circus Street Market in central Brighton, and you can connect with us online for updates and ways to take part. bpb.org.uk
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
SELECTED EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: REEF Fabrica A boat is towed out to sea before catching fire and sinking. It transmits images from the seabed as it transforms into an artificial reef: both an underwater sculpture and a lasting legacy for marine conservation. Simon Faithfull’s new commission, REEF, made in collaboration with marine biologists, began in August 2014 off the Dorset coast, where Faithfull’s boat was towed out to sea, set on fire and deliberately sunk to form an artificial reef. Five cameras mounted on board charted the boat’s descent and will monitor its transformation until Summer 2015, transmitting images via a dedicated website and relaying them to Fabrica Gallery. Says Faithfull, “My intention is that as the fire burns, the ship will slowly sink to the seabed and begin its new life as an artificial reef – a platform for a new ecosystem that will gradually emerge around the wreck”.
Photography by Gavin Weber. © Simon Faithfull 2014
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
AMORE E PIOMBO: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF EXTREMES IN 1970S ITALY Brighton Museum & art Gallery Note: some images in this exhibition may be considered unsuitable for people under 15 years of age
Italy in the 1970s witnessed a period of domestic terrorism punctuated by bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. The catalyst for violence was the rise of the Italian Communist Party as an electoral force, opposed by the extremes of the left and right within Italy and externally by the USA and the Soviet Union. At the very heart of things were the murkier manoeuvrings of clandestine groups within NATO, the CIA, the Italian Secret Services and the P2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic Lodge. Outrages perpetrated by one group masqueraded as acts carried out by another. The Italian press came to term this, ‘dietrologia’, the study of what you can’t see. These so called ‘Years of Lead’ occurred against a backdrop of industrial unrest and a sexual revolution that, in a catholic country, embraced divorce reforms and abortion laws, feminism, gay rights, the new contraceptive pill and free love. The photographs exhibited here have been gathered from the archives of the Rome based agency, Team Editorial Services: a group of paparazzi photographers who oscillated between pursuing film stars at play and the violent reality on the streets. This mischievous play of collusion and intrusion was brought into sharp focus as their dramatic ‘alto contrasto’ pictures exposed the instantly identifiable faces of the European and American celebrities of the day.
Giulio Andreotti, c1970s © TEAM Editorial Services/Alinari
Far from offering answers, Amore e Piombo (Love and Lead) presents for scrutiny the admissible evidence of Italian press photography of this most turbulent and tangled decade, the truth of which remains, forty years on a viscous mystery.
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The 40th anniversary of Co-Optic’s Real Britain Postcards project is celebrated in this first public showing of material from the archive. This exhibition uncovers a lost episode in the development of socialdocumentary British photography. On view are photographs, posters, and ephemera related to seminars, exhibitions and events organised by Co-Optic members, alongside the Real Britain Postcards project: a two-part edition of twenty-five photographic postcards. Several of the photographs shown here have never been shown or illustrated before.
Enoch Powell electioneering, photography by Paul Hill © Co-optic, 1974
REAL BRITAIN 1974: CO-OPTIC AND DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY Dorset Place Gallery, University of Brighton Uncovering a lost episode in the development of British social documentary photography, this exhibition explores how the Co-Optic group attempted to establish an authentic representation of 1970s Britain.
The London based collective comprised some of the emerging practitioners of the time, including Martin Parr, Daniel Meadows, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Nick Hedges, Fay Godwin, Paul Hill, Ron McCormick and Gerry Badger and was driven by the organisational skills of fellow photographer and entrepreneur, Stephen Weiss. The group’s ambitions were to create a forum to share and explore ideas amongst its emerging and established members, both nationally and internationally. The postcard exhibition was first published in December 1974, a time when populist documentary realism had a special prominence in English television, film and photography, and proved to be one of its most successful projects. This was the moment when ‘reality tv’ was first originated with the screening of Paul Watson’s The Family. Using the postcard as a platform for creative expression and accessibility, Co-Optic laid claim to combine the new ‘independent photography’ -which was inspired by US examples, with the style and forms of 60’s photo-journalism in the UK- to establish a more authentic representation of contemporary life in Britain.
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
© Jan von Holleben TAA_machine_05 from The Amazing Analogue: How we play photography, 2014 Co-commissioned by Hove Museum and Photoworks for Brighton Photo Biennial
THE AMAZING ANALOGUE: HOW WE PLAY PHOTOGRAPHY Hove Museum & Art Gallery Co-commissioned for Hove Museum and Brighton Photo Biennial, German photographer Jan von Holleben collaborated with young people from Brighton & Hove, employing perspective, props and a box of tricks that owes much to the early film pioneers celebrated in Hove Museum’s extraordinary collection. Exploring a mysterious archive of unidentified slides and negatives, Jan and his young team set out to discover what the strange images might depict, and to construct incredible machines that might help analyse them.
Von Holleben says: ‘Everything is possible (in my work) – we can fly to a distant universe, build machines that can otherwise only be dreamt of, see ghosts, or shrink ourselves to dwarf-size; there are no limits apart from our own responsibilities and skills. This is how we play photography.’ Modelling this project on early Hove filmmakers such as George Albert Smith and James Williamson, Jan von Holleben creates ambiguous images that change perceptions of reality and invite us to explore history repeating itself.
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A RETURN TO ELSEWHERE Circus Street Market Two locations, two photographers, working together to exchange cultural experiences and perspectives, sharing edits of their work with a single project exploring culture and identity. Photographers, Kalpesh Lathigra (UK) and Thabiso Sekgala (SA), have used the framework of collaboration to develop work at the same time, in separate locations as well as alongside each other in the same city. Together, they explore the representation of communities, past and present in Marabastad and Laudium, South Africa and in Brighton, UK. Marabastad, was a culturally and racially diverse community before forced relocation in the late 1940’s. Closeby, Laudium, on the outskirts of Pretoria was proclaimed an Indian Township in 1961 under the Group Areas Act. Although a small group, Brighton’s largest ethnic minority group is Indian, a community with an interesting historical back-story relating to the British Indian Army, whose soldiers fought in WW1 and were temporarily hospitalised at Brighton’s Royal Pavilion. Top: Marabastad © Lathigra/Sekgala 2014 Below: Sunday morning at the flea market, Kemptown © Lathigra/Sekgala 2014
Lathigra and Sekgala’s new work uses both contemporary and historical references including family albums, postcards, journalism, official state photography, street and studio portraits. They have each worked directly with communities in each city. Both photographers are interested in creating narratives, and exploring photography’s role in representing communities, raising questions about ‘truth and fiction’ in terms of identity, culture and history.
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SO LIKE YOU BY ERICA SCOURTI University of Brighton Gallery Working in collaboration with online communities, Erica Scourti sets out to make sense of the overload of images online and how personal snapshots collide and mingle with millions of others through social platforms. So Like You highlights the tensions between individual and collective authorship in network culture.
© Erica Scourti Ro, Backbend
Scourti begins her investigation by uploading her personal archive of scanned photographs, letters, flyers and other ephemera to Google’s reverse image search engine for analysis. Her images become linked, digitally and metaphorically with other similar images, reinforcing network connection, anonymity and originality. Scourti invited creators of similar images to add tags and descriptions. This data was then fed into Scourti’s archive, creating a feedback loop between personal archive and shared authorship. Pathways are created between images that question authenticity in an increasingly mediated, recorded life. “Like many people, I have a box filled with the leftovers from my analogue, teenage life: love letters, postcards, drawings, flyers, diaries and of course, stacks of photos. This personal archive acts as a starting point to my project, entered into a similar image search which analyses these images through pattern recognition, rather than any personal, linguistic description of them, and connects these apparently unique, contingent images to thousands of others scattered across a network of users.” Scourti’s work is performative and satirical, often using autobiographical material. She works with video, text and performance and regularly writes as part of her practice.
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
© Andrew Lacon Studio Collage ( Bernini) detail 2014
PLANE MATERIALS University of Brighton Gallery Plane Materials looks at the close and complex relationship between photography and sculpture. Curated by Nathaniel Pitt and bringing artists Cornford & Cross and Andrew Lacon together for the first time, the commission is a response to the nationally designated and internationally significant photography archive at the Library of Birmingham. Andrew Lacon’s work draws directly on a Rome Album from the archive at the Library of Birmingham. Interested in how sculpture has been documented and how we experience sculpture through the distribution of the image, Lacon has created an installation where the display is as important as the archive.
Cornford & Cross present their ‘Afterimage’ series, works produced from the removal and destruction of their own photographs which were previously mounted onto aluminium substrates and exhibited in public. The ‘Afterimage’ series embodies the process of its own (un)making: the removal and destruction of the photograph transforms the work from image to object and alludes to the experience of a community asking the viewer to question their role in the exhibition.
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THE PHOTOCOPY CLUB: A GIANT COLLECTIVE Circus Street Market For BPB14, The Photocopy Club has invited people to get together and form collectives with friends, family and peers to make work that responds to the theme of community. The nature of this collaboration highlights how groups creatively navigate and negotiate from individual perspectives to joint outcomes. Using the zine format, The Photocopy Club has created an exhibition that showcases the thought processes and flexibility required when working as a collective. Relying on black and white photocopiers, the project encourages accessibility and affordability in printed photography.
© The Photocopy Club
The Photocopy Club culminates in bringing these collectives together to join in for a giant collective making, which will be exhibited during BPB14 and one month later in Johannesburg during Joburg Photo Umbrella. As Matt Martin, Curator of The Photocopy Club says, “what we are hoping to achieve with this project is to get photography off the Internet and get printed matter back into the hands of the public. Photocopying is one of the cheapest ways to get photography printed. Basically we want the show to be like a giant zine that everyone can take a page from.”
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© Katie Gray 2014
A VIEW TO THE PAST Jubilee Square This summer photographer Lydia Goldblatt worked with an intergenerational group of Brighton & Hove residents as part of BPB14. Through a series of facilitated photography workshops Lydia enabled participants from different generations to create new work together about experiences of youth, and of growing old in our city. Collaboration has been a key feature of the project, and as part of this participants developed and made the work together, sharing personal stories, memories and skills, collectively exploring the notion of ‘the daily journey’, and together investigating some of the similarities and differences in their everyday lives through photography.
© Jessica Catfield 2014
© Milo Belgrove 2014
Throughout the project, participants were taught camera skills, and were set photographic exercises as a means to test out different ways of approaching the theme. The main body of each participant’s work however, was made outside of the workshops. Each person developed one or more ideas that they wanted to explore, and were loaned cameras to help them experiment and make photographs following their own interpretation of ‘the daily journey’. The final photographs allow glimpses into people’s lives. The dialogue, and the process of the project itself expand these glimpses into an opportunity to understand and imagine the experience of others. “The images that were presented were fascinating, not least because of the memories and stories attached to them. We learnt about Charles Hart’s experience as a soldier in the RAF during WW2 through a paper negative that had been made of him when he was stationed in Gibraltar. This image only existed as a negative, but, I was able to scan and print it as a positive image, and at the age of 91, he could see for the first time what he had looked like as a young man of 18. Pam Drew brought in a photograph of herself and her brother as young children. This picture had been sent to Pam’s father while he was stationed abroad in the Royal Navy. He had kept it as a precious memento of his children, and was finally able to return the photograph when he himself returned home”. Lydia Goldblatt
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SOME BPB14 THEMES: COMMUNITY Community, as a theme, informs several of the BPB commissions, particularly those in which the participation, or involvement of particular communities is central to the process of making the work.
White Blocks, Laudium © Lathigra/Sekgala 2014
Photography has long been used as a tool to document or chart the lives of different communities. Photographers use many different devices or approaches to record the uniqueness of individuals and communities, and to capture their histories, changes, growth or demise. Often, photographers establish relationships with these communities, living or spending long periods of time with them. The relationship between photographer and subject becomes an integral part of the work itself.
In A Return to Elsewhere at Circus Street Market, photographers Kalpesh Lathigra (UK) and Thabiso Sekgala (SA) have explored the history, culture and identity of immigrant communities in Marabastad and Laudium, South Africa and in Brighton. Sekgala has documented the forced removals from South African townships, whilst Lathigra engaged with communities in both Laudium (an exIndian township) and Brighton in order to highlight the role of the camera in capturing these personal stories of displacement. Both artists engaged directly with communities in each city to make the new work, which uses both contemporary and historical references to explore ideas around ‘belonging to a community’ regardless of its location because of universal concepts such as relationships, economics, family and fate.
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
An interest in community sits at the core of Stories Seen Through a Glass Plate. Shown as light boxes in fifty shop windows along Lewes High Street, the exhibition focuses on the incredible archive of a commercial photography studio in Lewes, believed to be the longest continuously running studio in the world. Edward Reeves took his first portrait in 1855. Four generations later, his great grandson Tom Reeves takes photographs in the
© Jessica Catfield 2014
same studio. The studio archives are complete – with over 10,0,000 negatives going all the way back to the first Victorian glass plate negatives, offering a rare and unique glimpse into the people and history of Lewes. Local communities have also been involved in making new work for BPB14. A View to the Past in Jubilee Square presents on light boxes, work made by an intergenerational group of Brighton & Hove residents, the oldest of whom is 92. The older and younger participants have been working together with photographer Lydia Goldblatt to explore the notion of ‘the daily journey’, sharing their different experiences and perspectives of photography both digital and analogue.
Motor smash (Vallance and Martin) in Station Street, Lewes, 1913 © Edward Reeves, Lewes
There is also a long tradition of artists forming their own communities. A Bold Experiment: work and play at Ditchling’s Guild offers a rare insight into the history of one of the most influential artist communities in 20th century Britain. The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic was founded in 1920 by the sculptor and stone-carver Eric Gill and the printer Hilary Pepler who together lived and worked in a cluster of buildings on the Common, north of Ditchling, East Sussex.
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COLLABORATION
The BPB14 theme of ‘collaboration’ responds in part to the recent growth and prominence of collaborative modes of production being preferred by photographers, and also partly in recognition of collaboration as a very real necessity in these days of austerity – both for arts organisations, and for practitioners. Collaboration is explored both as subject matter, and as a process in this festival, and the new commissions and exhibitions programme reflect this.
BPB14 has not had a single curator, but has come about through collaborative partnerships between artists, galleries, curators and many others from within and beyond the arts sector. The programme has been shaped and informed by a multitude of voices and agendas, and echoes the multitude of possibilities offered through collaborative working. For A Return to Elsewhere photographers Kalpesh Lathigra and Thabiso Sekgala came together to create their individual works. They explored common themes, and shot the work in the same, and different locations, with different communities. Their joint editing process, and regular exchanges enabled them to create a cohesive body of work that presents individual perspectives on shared ideas. Simon Faithfull’s ambitious new commission REEF sees the artist collaborating with marine biologists and many others to form an artificial reef by deliberating burning and sinking an old ship at the end of its working life, wrecking it to create a new underwater ecosystem. Visitors to Fabrica can watch replays of the ship sinking, and observe its new underwater role through a live camera stream to the bottom of the sea.
Live feed screenshot. © Simon Faithfull 2014
In So Like You artist Erica Scourti, in collaboration with online communities, sets out to make sense of the overload of images online. Scourti begins her investigation by uploading her own personal archive of images and other ephemera to Google’s reverse image search engine. Using pattern recognition algorithms, she discovers other people who have shared images with a similar visual footprint ‘just like hers’. Scourti’s process initiates a creative exchange with
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other image makers who are invited to collaborate with her by tagging and describing photos, a process that in turn feeds back into an analysis of the artist’s own archive of digital photos. “The statistical analysis of pixel arrays promises a notion of objectivity, that images could be read and sorted without having to know their content, origin, or author, without bias. However, any search system is weighted to reflect the economic potential and value of particular images, a value that we as viewers and users collaborate with by clicking, sharing, embedding and liking.” Erica Scourti
© Jan von Holleben TAA_machine_12 from The Amazing Analogue: How we play photography, 2014 Co-commissioned by Hove Museum and Photoworks for Brighton Photo Biennial
At Hove Museum, German photographer Jan von Holleben takes a different approach to collaboration in The Amazing Analogue: How We Play Photography. The artist worked closely with a small group of children from Brighton. Together they investigated a collection of slides made by the Hove Pioneers, a group of early filmmakers experimenting with new technology in photography, projection, and filmmaking. Utilizing sequencing, vignetting, doubleexposure and special lenses, they produced spectacular shows for audiences that had never seen things like edited moving images, narrative film or basic special effects. Collaboration with children is often a central part of the artist’s work, and Von Holleben says of the commission: The collaborative process of making this project is artistic and playful, rather than scientific or logical. As I see it, science and common logic can harm the creative and playful process very easily sometimes, and my work usually deals with the impossibility of reality anyway.
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DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY Documentary photography is the profession of the photojournalist, and the press photographer, and is often seen as a quest to convey some kind of truth about the world. This kind of photography is usually produced as a result of a commission from a publication, newspaper, magazine, or an organisation, and photographers work to a brief. Historically, documentary is seen as a genre that attempts to record significant events, with an ambition to remain truthful to the subject or the moment, and an attempt to remain objective. As technology developed, so did the techniques and styles of the genre, with small hand held, faster cameras allowing photographers to ‘capture’ events as they happened.
Real Britain 1974: Co-Optic Documentary Photography presents work by a group of emerging photographers in the 1970s who placed emphasis on social commentary and were looking for a new way of truthfully recording life in Britain at that time. Real Britain was a series of twenty-five black & white postcards portraying ‘real’ contemporary life, and for sale to the general public. The group embraced the idea of postcards as a platform for displaying their work, as well as selling it to a much wider audience. 50,000 were printed, and all sold within a year. This historical exhibition contrasts with One Planet City, which exhibits ten site-specific installations by ten contemporary photographers in public spaces across the city. Selected from an open call, ten established and emerging photographers including Nick Waplington, Jason Larkin, Amanda Jackson and Sophie Gerrard have all been briefed to create new work responding to the ten principles of One Planet Living – a model for addressing
© Sam Faulkner/FotoDocument
BPB14 presents work that explores this genre Amore e Piombo is presented in partnership with the Archive of Modern Conflict, a collection of unique imagery depicting visions of war, conceived as a tool for discovering the happenings of the world. The exhibition presents politics and press photography from the period much of it through the photographs produced by an agency called Team of Rome.
sustainability issues in the 21st Century. Each photographer was assigned a principle. These principles include zero waste, sustainable transport, culture and community and zero carbon. Commissioned by FotoDocument in partnership with Photoworks and Bioregional. The ten photographers have been supported in the making of these commissions over the summer through the expertise of environmental specialists at Brighton & Hove City Council and other One Planet Living partner organisations.
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COLLECTIVES
Several of the Biennial exhibitions present the work of particular collectives in order to explore the range of creative and practical possibilities that being part of a collective can offer. The collectives presenting work demonstrate some of the ways in which artistic ambition and shared rationale, organisational structure and hierarchy differ and vary within each. Real Britain 1974: Co-Optic Documentary Photography explores a key moment in the development of British social documentary photography in the 1970s through the work of the Co-Optic group. The exhibition explores how the Co-Optic group attempted to establish an authentic representation of 1970s Britain at a time of great change: “The 1970s was, in my opinion, photography’s most important decade of the twentieth century. During this period its traditional practices were questioned – even undermined – its profile as a medium of creative self-expression was raised immeasurably, and the teaching of the subject changed beyond recognition.” Paul Hill, Co-Optic group member
Untitled © Don Hudson, 2014
Five Contemporary Photography Collectives at Circus Street Market is an exploration of collaborative working methods, with five very different contemporary photography collectives. These provide a route into current conversations around the resurgence of photography collectives. Whether working towards joint creative endeavours, such as Sputnik Photos and RUIDO Photo, or working alongside each other in creating individual bodies of work, as is the way of Burn My Eye, all of the collectives presenting work for BPB14 were chosen for their ability to respond creatively to the challenge of distilling the nature of their work through a small showcase of work.
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Some of the advantages of working as a collective are made clear through Sputnik Photos ease in presenting several subjective viewpoints which overlap, support and challenge their individual creative and political views. Whereas at the core of Uncertain States is the desire to create a space for shared ambition and purpose through artist led exhibitions, talks and publications. “The collaborators’ role must constantly change and be redefined, not only on a personal level but within the group as collective. This not only keeps the project vibrant and alive but also creates peer support. Collaboration relies on openness and the sharing of knowledge, but mostly it needs trust - trust in the creative process that is clearly always in uncertain states.” Uncertain States co-founders: David George, Spencer Rowell, Fiona Yaron-Field.
Contemplation © Julie Cockburn, 2014
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
PHOTOGRAPHY, TRUTH AND FICTION Truth is one of the central concerns of philosophy, and has been the subject for debate in photography since its very beginning. It is also something to consider when viewing some of the photographs presented in BPB14, particularly as the festival presents work that is constructed or staged, as well as documentary photographs capturing ‘real life’. Can a photograph be truthful? When engaging with a photograph and considering this question there are many things to take into account – the photographer’s motivation, the social, political or cultural context in which the work was made, the effect of how the work is framed and the context in which it is displayed. For example, do we read an image differently if it hangs alongside other similar or different works?
What has been left out is as important as what has been included, and what we bring to an image in terms of experience, gender, cultural identity, background and attitude affects how we interpret it. And to make it harder, technology today allows an image to be altered – changing what it represents. An interest in the truth and fiction of photography narratives lies at the heart of Jan von Holleben’s work in The Amazing Analogue: How We Play Photography. Making playful references to the visual trickery of early photographic and moving image techniques such as magic lantern shows, projection and other analogue techniques, von Holleben employs non-digital image solutions to the same effect, thus challenging today’s digitally native audiences. Along the coast at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne, Twixt Two Worlds, like the Amazing Analogue is also inspired by the collections at Hove Museum. The exhibition focuses on the Barnes Brothers’ early cinema and takes the technique of double exposure and the visual effect of superimposition as starting points to explore the development of still and moving image across photography, magic lantern slides and cinema. On light boxes in Brighton’s city centre, Looking into the Family Album presents a eries of staged photographs made by young people created through artist led workshops. Their work explores the notion of family, and the way in which family portraits are constructed conveying their own fictional views of family life.
5th November, from Looking into the Family Album, 2014
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
SIMPLE ACTIVITIES
SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT ANY PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGE These generic questions may help students to articulate their emotional and critical responses to a photograph: What do you see in this photograph? What is happening in this photograph? Who created this photograph? And for what purpose? What visual qualities have been used to attract and hold your attention? For example, use of colour, composition, framing, viewpoint. Could this photograph be interpreted differently by different people? How? What is included, and what is missing from this photograph?
IN THE GALLERY These simple activities are designed to encourage pupils to look longer, and think deeper about the photographs they encounter through BPB14. Choose one photograph that you particularly like or dislike. What has attracted you to this image? Work through some of the generic questions (above), but consider also how and when the photograph was made. Is there a relationship between this image and the others in the room? Make a study of the photograph in your sketchbook, writing notes alongside it. Describe what you see, and what you think it’s about. In pairs: Each person chooses an opposite end of the gallery (or a different room). Select one photograph then write down ten words that come to mind. Try to guess each other’s choices! In pairs: compare and contrast two photographs. Discuss the similarities and differences between the two images. Choose a photograph and create a narrative (story) around what you can, or can’t see. What happened before/after the photograph was taken? Who are the characters? What is the setting for the story?
Unveiling Lewes War Memorial, 1922 © Edward Reeves, Lewes
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BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL 2014 RESOURCE PACK FOR TEACHERS
USEFUL WEBSITES FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
BPB.ORG.UK The Biennial website includes information about exhibiting photographers and collaborators, and details of the festival programme and related events and activities.
PHOTOGRAPHYTIPS.COM A well regarded website offering practical information and advice on techniques to improve your photography. A practical ‘how to’ site, and a free membership site.
PHOTOWORKS.ORG.UK Photoworks commissions new photography, produces exhibitions and events including the Brighton Photo Biennial, publishes books and an annual magazine.
VAM.AC.UK/PAGE/P/ PHOTOGRAPHY/ The Victoria & Albert Museum’s subject hub for photography. The section includes articles, thematics, genre information, and details on photographic processes, photographers and exhibitions.
MAGNUMPHOTOS.COM One of the world’s leading photo agencies Magnum photographers document people, events, issues and personalities across the world. TATE.ORG.UK Tate’s Learn Online section is extensive and thorough. It has a range of resources for children, young people and teachers including in depth information on artists and exhibitions, images from the collection, archive film footage, audio and video. The online shop sells teachers’ packs and activity sets. NPG.ORG.UK The National Portrait Gallery includes extensive resources for teachers about portraiture in a variety of media, including photography.
THEPHOTOGRAPHERSGALLERY. ORG.UK The Photographers’ Gallery is the largest public gallery in London dedicated to photography. Its website includes details of photographers, exhibitions, and learning resources. NATIONALMEDIAMUSEUM.ORG.UK The National Media Museum in Bradford includes an extensive collection of 19th century and early 20th century photography. The website contains extensive information about the collection and media resources for different age groups.
