2015: distances

For this year's exhibition we have teamed up with Fringe Arts Festival in Bath which will run from 22nd of May to the 7th of July. Head over to www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/foto39 for details. See you there! 

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Fringe Arts Bath Photographic Posters

These posters were designed for the promotion of the Fringe Arts Bath festival but were not used. These use a simple photoshop trick to tuck the text into architecture and structures found around Bath, with the idea being a ‘part of’ Baths culture/structure.

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The hanging of Foto39 2015 can begin!! See you tomorrow for the opening https://www.facebook.com/events/1425683677736850/

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This year’s exhibitors - full list

With spring just around the corner, this year's Foto39 exhibition promises to be an exciting event, alongside shows that respond to Disordering Chaos, African Enlightenment, Disobedient Art and Seeing Sound from Inside-out and many others,  in a range of genres that promise something for everyone! We have been blown away by the strength of submissions this year and we are thrilled to be exhibiting a range of work by 9 photographers from all over the world. Each artist explores 'Distances' in unique and intriguing ways, be it spacial, personal or cultural. Neenad Arul  - 'Random Red Numbers' Karl Child -  'Portrait of a Mega City' Karen Dawe - 'Shadow Selves' Jessie Edwards-Thomas - 'Strangers I know' Slaven Gabric - 'Save place Tate Chu Yoko' Maria Nitulescu - 'Cultural Reflective Distance' Sergey Trapezin - 'Bus-Stop Communication' Oliver Tooke - 'Syria' Marja Saleva - 'Letters to an Unknown Lover'

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Preparing for FaB 2015!

Spring is finally here and we are busy getting ready for the Fringe Arts festival in Bath. This year we had even more international submissions and we are hoping that it is a trend that stays with us in years to follow.

Fringe Arts Bath has been on the festival-scene for ten years and is run by volunteers, who are artists themselves, to bring an exciting and diverse festival to Bath. A wide mix of events will take place during the two weeks and we are proud to be one of them!

If you'd like to check out what else is happening during the festival go to FaB's website

We hope to see you there!

This is only a few of our international submissions!

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Nan Goldin and Distances

Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983 Silver dye bleach print © 1983 Nan Goldin

by Phillipa Klaiber

During the open-call period, we will be discussing how well-known photographers confront the idea of distances in their work; begining with Nan Goldin's "Nan and Brian in Bed". This image, of course, is well known as the iconic cover for photographer Nan Goldin’s book version of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Goldin’s work is laded within autobiography, she is celebrated for her blunt representations of violence, drug use and emotional turmoil. Goldin demands no distance between herself and her work; the distance between image and life experience is so draw-stringed that we, the viewer, are pulled into her narrative. We are close as a voyeur; a spectator. Alienation is the key word here; displayed in a subtle spatial distance, an unreciprocated gaze. This is a distance instantly recognised, carrying immense emotional power. 

Click here to find out how to submit your work for our Distances Photography Competition 2015.

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Sneak Peek of The Christmas Steps Gallery

   The Christmas Steps Gallery is an unique creative space. Large arch windows flood the main room with light and immediately invite passers-by to step inside. Two smaller rooms offer greater scope for full lighting control and are excellent spaces for video.  The street itself, The Christmas Steps, gave name to the gallery and the Christmas Steps Arts Quarter, a community of eight unique streets in Bristol lined with creative traders, independent shops, cafés, art galleries and many more intriguing finds.  Located in the very center of Bristol, The Christmas Steps Gallery promises a bustling opening night and regular foot fall during the day.   Visit the gallery's website for more photos and to see  their previous exhibitions. christmasstepsgallery.co.uk

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Analogue/Man vs Digital/Machine

In the Swedish tv-series Äkta människor (English title Real humans) from 2012 we are confronted with a future society where robots (humanoids called a 'Hubot') have become close companions and have replaced most human workers. It cleverly raises some very current issues about how we live alongside the machines we have created. In one of the episodes two lawyers are discussing whether to start a case concerning the human (?) rights of Hubots: " A car doesn't have feelings and therefore it can't feel insulted or violated." "But you are saying a Hubot have feelings?" "Yes ... because there is no way for you to prove to anyone that you and me have feelings - is it in fact a behavior we have learnt to master which makes us socially acceptable? ... Can you prove that humans have a soul?" Although these Hubots where made to look like humans, they are treated like machines with the same rights and emotional capability as your SUV. And that is the problem right there - how can we continue to treat something that is programmed to look, sound and move like us as a machine? It is inevitable that the lines begin to blur and we start to forget about the difference between vains and wires, pulse and beep. I believe a future similar to that in Äkta människor is not actually that far away, but when we look at how we use technology in our own bodies in today's society it is maybe the machine in ourselvesthat we should confront. Today almost any damage or malfunction in our bodies can be fixed - pacemakers, chips, robotic limbs.. Even when nothing is wrong people undergo alterations like implants and tattooed ('permanent') makeup. Maybe in a not so distant future we will instead struggle to differentiate between the natural humans and the fake.

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The Inspiration Behind Michael Lange’s Wald

Michael Lange’s series of damp, haunting woodland has become one of my favourite books. Inspired by childhood imagination and the folk tales that feed it, Wald(Forest) takes us on a perilous journey through the deepest recesses of German forests. Intrigued by this connection of forests and fantasy that Lange has so eloquently observed, I delved a little deeper into its origins.  The tales of the brothers Grimm have made their way into most homes, the originals and adaptations feeding generations of imaginations. Some of the most well-known tales are set in unnamed forests that become an essential element to the story, often sealing a characters fate. Befitting of the morality of the Grimms’ tales, a good person who does well by others will often find sanctuary and good fortune in these forests, while an inherently bad person will meet their downfall. The appeal of the Grimms’ tales to the younger audience lies in the joy, freedom of imagination and strong sense of morality that the tales offer. They present aspects of family life, social relations and a clear idea of right and wrong. There are lessons to be learnt in each tale, building concepts of ethical standings. However, it is the allure of the enchanted world of magical creatures that cements these tales in the minds of a young audience. An imagination not yet hindered by the worries and restraints of an adult’s mind, is able to consciously build on the elements of a fairy tale world, carrying details of the story from the pages of a book into their environment. 

Wald explores this notion of a child’s relationship to the forest and the role that its perpetual twilight has in the freedom of imagination.  For three years he returned to the vast deciduous and coniferous forests of Germany, where the tales that influenced his photographs originate.  Stepping off the beaten track at dusk or dawn his photographs in muted blues, greens and purples offer a glimpse into the secrets held by the forest in the stillness of the night. They appear to have been taken just after a rain storm, when the forest lies silent, with a dampness in the air that clings to the leaves. Lange’s photographs offer a combination of the sublime and the terrifying, in a space that is constantly changing, influenced by seasons, time of day, light, weather and even our own perceptions.  Here, the adult self has finally arrived where the childish soul has longed to be, becoming part of the story itself.

A short essay titled “In the Woods” follows Lange’s photographs, in which Christoph Schaden describes our relationship with woodland as inherent memory.  “Woods: five letters, a word, just one syllable. It sounds strangely familiar, needing neither definition nor addendum. Within it, everything seems decided and explored. But once uttered, it echoes for quite some time, not as a sound but as a memory. It is as if the word itself needed a moment of visual recollection in order to become comprehensible. The images conjured by this five letter word originate in childhood. They relate to old tales in which different rules were in effect.” (Schaden, 2012) The old tales which Schaden refers to are likely to be German folk tales. He suggests that experiencing the woods, particularly as we do in Lange’s photographs, at dusk or twilight when there is an unusual stillness in the air, we easily recall the tales of old. The potential of the forest as a place of danger or refuge is reawoken with the recollection of magical creatures and the unusual people who call these forests home.

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