‘China Dream’ explores the fractured identities that second generation diaspora experience as they’re straddled their birth country and their motherland. Teresa Eng, whose parents immigrated to Canada from China via Hong Kong, explores the country of her ancestors.
Teresa visited China between 2013-2017. Her cultural memory of a place, where she has never lived, contrasts with a China in flux. During her stays, she witnessed constant cycles of construction, destruction and reconstruction and multiple cities and its surrounding towns. This inspired the stripped back colours of her images which were achieved by meticulously created handprints in the darkroom.
Each visit offered an insight to a country that is in the process of building its future while simultaneously reconstructing and reinterpreting its past, creating a new type of culture. Historical monuments and buildings, destroyed during Cultural Revolution are being rebuilt haphazardly ¬– often as facsimiles of the originals. The sprawling metropolis envelop the neighbouring countryside as more people move to the city – destroying an immeasurable amount of historical artefacts.
‘China Dream’ – the title of a patriotic calendar found at a newsagents –was also a term popularised in 2013 by General Secretary Xi Jinping. It also alludes to the American Dream, where hard work and entrepreneurial spirit will lift up each individual and the nation into prosperity.
It is a story that endures to this day: the rising up of mutineers against Captain Bligh in 1789 and Bligh’s epic journey of survival in the Pacific. We can thank Hollywood for exploiting the haziness around what happened when Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian, and his fellow mutineers settled with a group Tahitian captives on Pitcairn Island. Certainly, the films with their heroic, dashing stars are at least partly responsible for perpetuating the romantic image of this most mysterious of islands – the last British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific.
When Adam made it to Pitcairn in 2015, a long and arduous journey in itself, the reality could not have been further from the romantic visions of film and fiction. A volcanic mass with rocky shores measuring just two miles by a mile, there is no way off the island for three months at a time, until the cargo-passenger vessel returns. Cut off from the rest of the world, the inhabitants – fewer than 50, most of whom are descendants of the original mutineers – exist in a claustrophobic environment.
Adam’s photographs, with their voyeuristic edge and moments of intimacy masquerading as casual snapshots, or, in the case of the portraits, possessing an almost accusatory feel, are as complex and unyielding as the island itself. The exhibition is not meant to be an easy viewing experience. Where we might expect to see picturesque images of the island we are given claustrophobic interiors and stifling portraits, while the inclusion of different formats and objects – from cabinets of curiosities to audio excerpts – is a deliberate attempt to disorientate the viewer, to recreate something of the ‘discombobulating’ experience that is life on Pitcairn.
In 2004, the island became embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal from which it has never recovered. Eight men were convicted of sexual crimes, many against young girls. The convicted men served time for their crimes at HMP Pitcairn, and most still live on the island. Sentences were lenient, and since the people on Pitcairn have no freedom as it is, a prison sentence is little more than an abstract concept. Consequently, the past weighs heavy on the island; there is a sense of complicity in the islanders’ silence.
Although well aware of what had gone on, Adam hadn’t intended to make a project about the abuse scandal. Initially, she was interested in exploring the notion of ‘Utopia’ – how it could be understood as a construct born of need or desire. How can it be that Pitcairn is symbolic for some as a paradise, but for others a nightmarish ‘Lord of the Flies’ reality? Such is the power of the Bounty myth and indeed the mystery surrounding faraway places – rational thought becomes distorted. You can see evidence of these deep-rooted idealistic beliefs on Pitcairn: a stack of DVDs and a Clark Gable poster nod to the Bounty story, and yet the squalor in which people live is completely at odds with the idea of a tropical idyll.
Making any photographs at all was almost impossible as the residents, wary of outsiders, were reluctant to be photographed. Consequently, most of the portraits were taken inside away from prying eyes, with each sitter pictured alone, often refusing to meet the camera’s gaze. Photographs of empty rooms evoke a sense of loss while pi
nk tones subtly call to mind a childhood lost. Ghostly found photographs, their surfaces marred by the ravages of time and the harsh island environment, are like lost relics – reminders of a past that cannot be so easily erased.
We catch glimpses of magic and fantasy too: there is the dreamy image of a girl, her arm outstretched, and the Polaroids with their hazy appearance and soft tones and hues depicting dreamlike realities. One in particular encapsulates the sense of magical realism the island exudes. In it exotic-looking trees stretch out from the corner of the frame while a rugged mountain looms behind. At the top, a solitary tree is just discernible, the uneasy symbolism of this and the flame-like streak across the Polaroid’s surface all too apparent. If the degrading Polaroid film mirrors the fragility of the island community, the very landscape itself – with its treacherous cliff edges and steep sides – reflects the stifling atmosphere contained within.
This is not just a story about a strange, lost island, or even a deeply personal tale of one woman’s grit and determination in the face of adversity – although it is of course both of those things. It is a story that could happen to any woman – visitor or islander, child or adult, then or now; a story of what happens to human behaviour when no one is watching.
In 1956 René Magritte declared“a thing which is present can be invisible, hidden by what it shows.” It is an aphorism that perfectly sums up the work of Jonna Kina.
The series Foley Objects presents about thirty objects –everyday things for the most part – in an equal number of photos, each accompanied by a short caption. At first blush, the latter seems to bear no relation to the image associated with it, conjuring up an atmosphere of surrealist weirdness.
Then, little by little, it dawns on the viewer that the phrase relates to the sound made by the object depicted. Once this principle is grasped, perusing this gallery of images becomes not only disconcerting but fun too. And it is not long before one catches oneself hearing photos.
In audiovisual parlance, the term “Foley” designates sound effect added to a movie at post-production. The noise of footsteps, of a door slamming, of a piece of paper being screwed up – the types of sound not easily recorded during the shoot. The Finnish artist organizes photographs of the objects used by technicians to reproduce these sounds into a typology. Yet this arrangement quickly appears as more than a mere nomenclature, since, above and beyond its purely documentary approach, the series offers a veritable experience of synaesthesia that requires us to reflect on our perceptions and on the limits of the text-image relationship.
– Lydia Dorner, Curator, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne
This series questions domestic violence and our response to it, through its most extreme expression: conjugal homicides.
In France, one woman dies every 3 days under the assault of her partner or ex. Those «tragedies of separation» or so-called «crimes of passion» punctuate too often the short news columns of the local press. They tell us about similar stories: this man, who shot his wife because she wanted to leave him, or this other man, who stabbed his partner as he thought she was cheating on him. They happen so regularly that they seem to be perceived as tragic but banal events, as if domestic violence was a phenomenon against which there’s not much to do.
However, some particularly dreadful details sometimes manage to raise awareness on the violence of those crimes. Like the story of Marcelle, a 90 years old retired woman who was battered to death with a cooking pan by her husband in their suburbian home, on the 2nd of March 2017. Or the story of Thalie, a 36 years old management consultant who died on the 19 of August 2017, beaten up to death with a mixer tap by her partner, as they were doing construction works in their house. The horror summons indignation and suddently the violence of the act appears into its full dimension.
This is precisely the angle I have choosen to tackle this subject. I have decided to focus my photographic work on those homely objects which are turned into lethal weapons. The sight of those familiar objects does not reflect the violent stories they are related to. This contrast creates a distance that gives time for reflection.Murders of women by their partners or ex are not isolated facts happening once in a while among some specific contexts or social categories. The analysis of the 250 cases -at least- of women who were killed in such conditions in France in 2016 / 2017 shows that it is actually a phenomenon which happens in every socio-cultural categories, among couples of every age and profession. They always take place in situations of conjugal crisis, separation, or jealous control of a man on a woman that he considers as its own.
Murder as a proof of love ?
Congregation by Sophie Green is a celebration of Southwark’s Aladura Spiritualist African churches and congregations. Often referred to as “white garment” churches, Green’s images engage with rarely-documented dynamic communities who unite each weekend for Sunday service.
Aladura is a denomination of Christianity predominantly practised by Yoruba Nigerians, and in the last 40 years has become a ubiquitous part of London life – particularly in Southwark, which has the highest concentration of African churches outside the continent. Congregation observes a rich tapestry of worshippers and Sunday services, which are spoken in Yoruba and form a key social meeting point and place of cultural solidarity between African Londoners.Congregation asks questions about how individuals find collective identity and power within subcultures, and how cultural practice is assimilated into modern global contexts: traditional dress, food and customs rub up against modern technology and fashion, while devotional interiors colourfully fill the hidden, often industrial spaces that churches inhabit. Green also engages directly with individuals through collaborative, posed portrait sessions and photographic workshops which serve to empower and engage with members of each congregation and their faith. Mixed in with naturalistic images of men, women and children, these stylised portraits highlight the performance of identity and communality that underpins religious practice.
- Text by Loose Joints
Congregation is published and designed by Loose Joints, an artist-run publisher and design studio exploring progressive approaches to image making in book form. It was founded in London in 2015 by Sarah Piegay Espenon and Lewis Chaplin.
Virginie Rebetez takes on a photographic investigation of mediums and healers, common in the catholic region of Fribourg and well rooted in the culture, learning about their identity and practice, as she places them in a broader historical context of witch hunting.
“Malleus Maleficarum is perhaps Rebetez’s most ambitious and daring effort to explore the space between visible and invisible, to reimagine and reconsider the story in a fresh way. The past is brought in through the figure of Claude Bergier who was accused of witchcrafting and burnt at the stake in 1628, in Fribourg. Rebetez brings back Bergier by inquiring mediums about him, building then bridges between people and locations, separated by time and space. Malleus Maleficarum is unexpectedly personal and intimate book, reflecting on life and embracing the unknown, and at once boldly pushing the abilities of photographic language to represent the reality and beyond.”
Olga Yatskevich
Woodstock focuses on the inhabitants of a small city in Ontario, Canada. It is a creative response to the social dynamics and cultural identifiers of a place known locally as ‘The Friendly City’. As an inside-outsider, linked by maternal ties, the artist’s work is rooted in the personal exploration of her family’s traumatic past and its lasting effect. Woodstock explores themes of immigration and the traditions of rural, agricultural community, whilst documenting an evolving sense of place.
We were born as twin sisters to a Serbian father and Chilean mother in New York City, in 1994. Our parents separated when we were about a year old, since then our lives have been punctuated by constant change. We grew up in between Chile, the U.S. and Serbia; always switching from countries, schools, friends, cities, houses and families.
My twin came out as a trans man, and decided to start the transition process immediately. This work explores what this transition means in regards to our relationship as twins and our transient identities, what it means to care for someone, to listen, to respect, and to trust. It explores the reality of a transition and how it ties into the concept of a home. Our bodies and our relationships become our self-inflicted homes, through which we take control and self determine. I hope to explore the phenomenological experience as well as the the metaphysical one, seeking answers as to the confusion that our imaginary definitions and their subsequent ruptures cause us, and how this change is a terrifying but beautiful one.
Athens is an oxymoron city. Its flamboyant mythological heritage coexists with its dark and dramatic political-economic situation. Its sun shines with a thousand lights but crushes its streets. It is a blinding light that reveals its violence and its twilight faces. And yet we feel a life force much more intense than elsewhere. The idea of resistance takes on its full meaning. Bodies tirelessly rise up to face the chaos of history as one. In permanent revolution.
My project is to give an account of this oxymoron in images, but also of the complexity of the contemporary in its different temporal layers. With this phrase of Walter Benjamin always in mind, as an invisible and obsessive thread, seek light in the ruins of Attica. « In a landscape where nothing was recognizable, except the clouds, and in the middle, in a field of forces crossing tensions and destructive explosions, the tiny and fragile human body ».
Indoor Voices is an ongoing photo series documenting the relationship between my mother and me. The work is a collaborative discourse that discusses intergenerational womanhood, through the exploration of familial and female oriented complexities. Since its conception in 2015, explorations of body, vulnerability, uncertainty, and responsibility are explored in these works in an effort to photograph a comprehensive scope of intimacy, creating a testimony to our relationship and making our experiences as Jewish women visible.
Through this work we navigate our perception of ourselves and the life that happens outside of the frame as we age and solidify our identities as mothers, as daughters, as women responsible for themselves. It is impossible to make work about female and Jewish life without also thinking about the historic societal dismissal and lack of representation of these viewpoints, and utilizing that erasure as a driving motive to make the work. Through these portraits, we are making our existence visible and giving ourselves a platform through which we can vocalize our experiences. With this work, we are building a testimony to the mundane, to the transformative, to our lives.
Too Tired For Sunshine is a collection of photographs made in Vermont between 2011–2016. Though centered largely on animals and rural landscapes, these deeply personal images reflect my state of mind during a period spent battling depression and intense anxiety.
Drawn from daily life, the photographs explore loneliness and mortality as seen through a lens of absurdist dark humor. I am drawn to subjects that unsettle me–backyard slaughterhouses, roadkill, decay in various forms–as well as depictions of isolation in people, animals, and even inanimate objects. Often I find myself photographing subjects that appear to me drastically out of place, seemingly devoid of context–an oven left in an abandoned field, a man dressed as a medieval peasant walking his dog on a country road, a woman sweeping the outside of a church.
Making these photographs has given me separation from the darkness of the subjects themselves, and provided relief from feelings of dread. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of the images in Too Tired For Sunshine surprises and delights me. My hope is that people who view these photographs will discover a sense of unreality–sometimes grotesque, other times absurd, always beautiful–lurking in the midst of ordinary life.
As a woman brought up in China, I used to think I could only love someone who is older and more mature than me, who can be my protector and mentor. Then I met my current boyfriend, Moro. Since he is 5 years younger than me, I felt that whole concept of relationships changed, all the way around. I became the person who has more authority & power. One of my male friends even questioned how I could choose a boyfriend the way a man would choose a girlfriend. And I thought, "Damn right. That’s exactly what I’m doing, & why not!"
I started to experiment with this relationship. I would set up all kinds of situations for Moro and I to perform in the photos. My photos explore the alternative possibilities of heterosexual relationships. They question what is the norm of heterosexual relationships. What will happen if man & woman exchange their roles of sex & roles of power. Because my boyfriend is Japanese, and I am Chinese, this project also describes a love and hate relationship.
This project is an ongoing project which grows with our real relationship but is never meant to be a documentation.
A book "Experimental Relationship Vol.1 2007-2017" was published by Jiazazhi Press in May 2018.
Cruces is the name of a pueblo in Chihuahua, México where my mother was born and raised, and is an ongoing project exploring the concept of identity. Over the years, I have gradually become observant on how incredibly arbitrary and easily shaped an individuals developing identity can be based on his or her environment.
With Cruces, I am interested in exploring the various factors that influence it,
specifically by cultural norms and the media. As I am placed in a contrasting yet
familiar territory, my grandfather’s cattle ranch, family members, and objects
marked by time, pose questions about my own worldviews by examining a space that has indirectly embedded itself into my existence.
The Bakhtiari form one of the still existing nomadic and semi nomadic tribes
in the Zagros mountains, located in the South West of Iran. They live a life between traditions and the slowly approaching modern era.
The younger generations often support the autumn and spring migration through the mountains. However, more and more Bakhtiari become semi nomads as they prefer living in the cities due to extreme climatic as well as living conditions.
A Life On The Road is a documentation that portrays a bygone life which once stood for freedom and wideness. The severity and the rhythm of nature stand opposite to the conveniences of a permanent home. Being on the edge of tradition and modernity, they keep on living the life they know and continuously try to find their place.
Killarney is a Cape Town racecourse where speed, sound, fumes and masculinity intersect on weekends, in a cascade of sensory overload. This work digs into the affective relations formed between masculinity and the racecourse, considering how sentiment and emotions are mediated through the automobile.
the work is inspired by a passage by Geoff Dyer in Anglo-English Attitudes:
"Cars, for the Cornetts, are to be repaired, plundered for spares, patched up. To be gathered round, examined, discussed. The car is a mechanical agora or forum: a meeting place to exchange bare-chested opinions about carburettors or brake linings. Familiarity with such parts is expressed by kicking them; knowledge of engines by letting cigarette ash drop into the combustible tangle of tubes and sparks.
[...] For the Cornett children an automobile engine is a mystery to be initiated into. A man holds his baby up for a first peer into the engine, a baptism of oil at the altar of mechanics. A teenage boy genuflects beneath a jacked-up wheel worshipping. As a car sinks into utter uselessness it becomes a part of the landscape, a relic. A truck looks as site-specific as the stoop of a house. Its tyres are like wooden poles sunk into the ground. A boy lies under the hood of a car, reaching up an arm as if pulling a shiny car-patterned eiderdown over himself. Someone else leans on the hood like he's ordering drinks at a bar. "
Zugunruhe means migratory restlessness.
The inner need of keep moving like the bird that knows when is time to depart.
The series dives into a world of exploration where identity is forged in the act of migrating. No strings attached, no place, no home. The constant rediscover of foreign territory. The innocent eye that gazes the wild peak of the unknown landscape.
I grew up in a country where shaming is a lifelong tradition for positioning someone in society. What makes us escape our own country and how do we live based on values we once learnt and always questioned? How do we struggle, allow and accept? Aidos talks about the idea behind what we see, what we feel, how we express desire and what we believe is possible, all filtered through, and constrained by, society. In my effort to draw the portrait of Greece in transition, I came across a constant worry steaming from comparison of the self's state of being with the ideal social context's standard. Keeping in mind the idea of naivety behind our choices, I hope to document the freedom of the commonplace and the individual struggle of the becoming. In Greek mythology, Aidos was the goddess of shame, modesty and humility.
