Select / 23
Photofusion presents Select / 23.
Photofusion proudly presented Select/23. This group exhibition featured the work of five artists – Paul Graville, Viktorija Pociute Kunigelyte, Ryan Prince, Ann Russell and Angus Stewart – who were selected from the artists exhibiting in Photofusion’s Salon/23 to present their projects more fully.
While neither Salon or Select feature any particular theme, the work of these five artists was, coincidentally, thematically entangled. Family histories, the home as a political space, and the familiar (from the Latin familia, meaning family and household servants) were woven throughout much of this work. Many of the stories were difficult, but home is both a story of complexity and of simplicity.
Paul Graville’s Mincemeat was a series of staged tableau images investigating the ideology of the home, with particular focus on power dynamics and parental relationships.
This was a study of how the home has the capacity to shape us even if we are unconscious of it – how it simultaneously offers us a place of refuge but also containment.
Paul’s work was selected by Dr. Caroline Molloy, Programme Director of Digital Arts, Fine Art and Photography, UCA Farnham.
Viktorija Pociute Kunigelyte’s Liepa was the history of a family, her family, and the love for their motherland, Lithuania. She told the story of her grandfather and his brothers and what each of them sacrificed in the face of the Soviet occupation. The family home was burned to the ground and a young Linden (Liepa) tree, planted by the family, was reduced to ashes. Eventually, the tree regrew and became an important symbol for her family, whose lives once again play out beneath the Linden tree.
Viktorija’s work was selected by Lou Proud, Director, Leica Gallery, London.
Ryan Prince’s One Year of Therapy was a simple construct. As he saaid: 1. Attend therapy sessions, 2. Set up camera on tripod, 3. Turn on wireless trigger, 4. The camera takes a picture every ten minutes. The resulting images were anything but simple as we were left to fill the therapy room with our own thoughts and questions, to explore the dynamic between therapist and client, and to consider the cultural questions that this familiar setting raised about Black men and mental health.
Ryan’s work was selected by Gabriela Scardaccione, President of The Creative Circle.
Ann Russell’s Salt Pages unfolded from a place of deep familiarity, a stretch of South Devon Coast where she returned regularly, in all weather and all seasons, to follow fragile lines of salt as they threaded from one rock, day and photograph to the next, before tangling and releasing. Another language emerged, knotting and reforming.
Ann’s work was selected by Lucy Davies, Director 198 Contemporary Art and Learning.
Angus Stewart’s With Love, Jeannette was inspired by the chance discovery of his run-away aunt’s diaries from 1917. The work shifted across time as stories created in one generation were replicated in the next, only to be called into question by contradictory evidence or images. In the same way that psychogeography looks at the way psychology and geography collide, this work explored what a ‘domestic psychogeography’ might be – how we are surrounded at home by images, objects and documents from previous generations, and how we piece together the available information to complete a story into which we place ourselves.
Angus’ work was selected by David Moore, Principle Lecturer in Documentary Photography, Westminster University.