Photomonth.
Photomonth was a photography festival taking place in East London over the months of October and November in 2014. It featured many different photographers and artists in different locations around this area, celebrating the very nature of photography, and teeming with inspirational people and their work.
Museum of childhood- Toy Stories.
Toy Stories was an exhibition by Gabriele Galimberti investigating, through the medium of photograph, what toys reveal about their owner. It consisted of a series of twenty Photographs, in portrait form, exploring the role that toys play in the growth of children around the world. It was intended to reflect the significance of toys in different children and the impact that family and background has on a persons choice and outlook upon the world of 'play', thus highlighting the importance of these toys and the necessity for them in each child's situation.
Toy Stories was an exhibition by Gabriele Galimberti investigating, through the medium of photograph, what toys reveal about their owner. It consisted of a series of twenty Photographs, in portrait form, exploring the role that toys play in the growth of children around the world. It was intended to reflect the significance of toys in different children and the impact that family and background has on a persons choice and outlook upon the world of 'play', thus highlighting the importance of these toys and the necessity for them in each child's situation.
Each photograph and choice of toy gives an insight into the life and economic situation of that child. You can see the way their parents lives and aspirations have influenced them, in others you can see the way the families social circumstances and background have limited their options. It is also clear that some of the children have used their toys as a form of protection or companionship, others for more escapist purposes with play acting, all of which are dictated by the society in which they live and what the children need in order to be comfortable and content. For example, in some you can see a more developed society, with branded toys and promotional gifts highlighting the country's with a capitalist regime, however in others it is much bleaker, with children using what little they can find in order to find some channel for their imagination. However what is apparent in all these images is that all the children have one inherent similarity. They all take great pride in their toys, and fundamentally, are all simply interested in playing.
Another Object.
Another object was a collaborative effort by Matthew Walter, Elaine Tam, Damian Owen-Broad, Judith Nezri, Leanne Neale, Jacob Love, Dalia Kranauskaite, Geiste Kincinaityte and Lottie Hughes. It focused on de-contextualization and the implications upon the object in the photograph. It called into question the very nature of objects as we see them, deconstructing and stripping them of their meaning as a part of a collective setting, and focusing on what their individual pretense means to the spectator.
Another object was a collaborative effort by Matthew Walter, Elaine Tam, Damian Owen-Broad, Judith Nezri, Leanne Neale, Jacob Love, Dalia Kranauskaite, Geiste Kincinaityte and Lottie Hughes. It focused on de-contextualization and the implications upon the object in the photograph. It called into question the very nature of objects as we see them, deconstructing and stripping them of their meaning as a part of a collective setting, and focusing on what their individual pretense means to the spectator.
Each of these photographers had a different message they wanted to get across when it came to de-contextualization. For example,Lottie Hughes made a series of images called 'Motel'. These where inspired by old postcards she found from 1950's motels in flea markets. She took interest in the ideas of displacing everyday subject matters, and the act of discovering them in mysteriously evocative settings. She felt that the motel images represented places completely disconnected from today's reality, and digitally altered the photographs she took in order to suspend them in a moment of virtual reality, creating an aura of disquiet in an otherwise idyllic image. She further impressed this feeling by placing the images at angles before they could be viewed by an audience.
Judith Nezri's images where also fascinating. They where a series of photographs taken of the front of houses in a place called Tory. This place, with only 100 residents, was very empty, and any structures built where either lifeless, uninhabited or incomplete. As Nezri walked through Tory she felt that the buildings became increasingly like facades, one dimensional and hollow. The camera therefore added to this shallow nature, allowing her to create images of the flat, soulless buildings. Her computational choices reinforced the ambient sense of absence, that stripped these 'homes' of their function. She also displayed them in one continuous thread, evoking in the audience a sense of the long meandering walk she took, allowing them to retrace her steps and understand the nature of Tory.
In Dalia Kranauskaite's project, she chose to retrace her continual encounters with ordinary objects that clutter and overrun her everyday life to the point in which they loose meaning and become unimportant. Through meticulously designed and inspired composition and insertion of very foreign elements, she carries out experiments to renew these mundane objects and embew them with new meaning. Through her creative use of cinematic spectacle, original composition and visual conspiracy, she gives each item infinite possibility and the ordinary becomes the pinnacle of playful and imaginative expression. Expressing the role of the camera as a method of artistic expression.