Fieldwork Conference Update – Pt 3

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In addition to Hagit Keysar and Fiona Shields, Uclan Photo are pleased to welcome Filmmaker, Chris Leslie, Documentary photographer, Mateusz Baj and artist, Alejandra Carles-Tolra to the Fieldwork Conference. 

Chris Leslie is a BAFTA New Talent Award Winning Photographer and Filmmaker and has 
documented stories across Eastern Europe, The Balkans, Africa and Asia as well as in his home city of Glasgow. His project and bestseller photo book Disappearing Glasgow documents the changing face of Glasgow has seen him acknowledged as the most consistent chronicler of the city’s recent history.

 

High Rise Flat demolition
Polish born, London based photographer, Mateusz Baj is a social documentarian and co-founder of the inPro Collective. Like Chris, Baj’s work will unpack the ‘transformative’ capacity of conflict and upheaval., focusing on the Ukraine, Baj’s talk will unpack his  4year project which seeks to create a photographic portrait of modern Ukraine; a post- Soviet state struggling with the shadows of history, widespread social issues and an uncertain future. 
Mateusz
Lastly, Carles-Tolra discusses a body of work entitled, ‘Where we Belong‘. A piece which explores themes of belonging, femininity and escapism through a portrayal of Jane Austen devotees. The ‘Jane Austen Pineapple Appreciation Society’ is a group of people who share a strong passion for the 19th century English author. The society’s members, who define themselves as Janeites, have created a community of like-minded people with whom to celebrate the work of the writer. Since its creation over two years ago, the society has built a solid network of support and sisterhood that has created strong bonds among its members.
 
Alejandra Carles-Tolra image
A reminder of the day:

Fieldwork 2018

9.00 – Coffee and Registration

9.45 – Introduction – John van Aitken (UCLan)

10.00 – Fiona Shields

10.45 – Q&A – Fiona Shields & John van Aitken

11.00 – Break

11.30 – Hagit Keysar

12.15 – Q&A – Hagit Keysar & Dr Gary Bratchford (UCLan)

 12.30 – 1.30 – Lunch

1.30 – Chris Leslie

2.15 – Q&A – Chris Leslie & John van Aitken

2.30 – Launch of North magazine – Brian J. Morrison (UCLan)

2.45 – Break

3.00 – 3.20 – Mateusz Baj

 3.20 – 3.40 – Alejandra Carles-Tolra

3.40 – Q&A – Mateusz Baj, Alejandra Carles-Tolra  & Daniel Tierney (UCLan)

4.00  – Closing Comments – John van Aitken

For programme details please contact event organiser, John Van Aitken – Jaitken@uclan.ac.uk

DIY Aerial Photography -Decolonising the Sky

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Our second keynote for our forthcoming Fieldwork Conference (14 November 2018) is Israeli scholar, artist, activist, Hagit Keysar. Over the years, UCLan Photography, and specifically the MA, has developed an identity and community of practice that focuses on the political status of the image. This is echoed through the themes of our previous conferences and our chosen keynotes, but also in our teaching. We have modules dedicated to Socially Engaged Practice, another entitled, Space, Location and Territory,  in addition to a critical module called Visualising the In/Visible. In addition to professional practices options such as the Darkroom module and New-Media Practices, the MA reflects a culture of thinking about society, vision and power that are as important now than ever before.
Power is often aligned vision, specifically scopic range. To be able to see afar, either horizontally or from above afford the viewer strategic power and knowledge. We must now begin to think about verticality with greater rigour, specifically in terms of vision. As the possibilities to engage in verticality becomes more democratised, it opens up greater possibilities for play, participation and activism and a sociology of the sky.
Hagit’s abstract is below, followed by her bio. The photo represents the kit required for a DIY aerial photography workshop.
toolkit_800
The technique for producing DIY aerial photography with balloons or kites was developed by Public Lab (publiclab.org), an open-source community that develops tools and methods for community-based environmental investigations. It is based on a camera rig made from a reused plastic bottle, equipped with a simple digital camera that is pointed vertically to the ground and tethered to the kite/balloon string. This technique takes part in a broader practice and discourse termed “civic science”, “community science” or “collaborative science” that concerns the democratization of technoscientific tools and methods through the development of participatory technologies and collaborative practices between scientists and citizens, and citizens and themselves. Its first use traces back to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, where it was (and still is) used for creating evidence of the environmental hazards caused by extractive petrochemical industries. Since the oil spill, the development of the toolkit revealed a network of online and on-the-ground actions, people, issues and experiments who contributed to its dissemination and application in the US and other places around the world.
Hagit lives and works in Israel/Palestine, her research is practice-based and brings together visual work, activism and critical theory. She completed her PhD at the Politics and Government Department, Ben Gurion University, Israel; in her thesis, titled: “Prototyping the Civic View From Above: Do-It-Yourself Aerial Photography in Israel-Palestine”, she critically examined the political potential of civic/community science and open-source practices in situations of civic inequalities and human rights violations, focusing on the use of Do-It-Yourself aerial photography techniques. Hagit completed her MA with distinction from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology in the University of Manchester (UK) and BA in Fine Arts from the Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design, Jerusalem.

Fieldwork Conference – November 14 2018 – Head of Photography at the Guardian

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Each year, the Photography Department Photo Research Group organise a conference, on site ant the University of Central Lancashire. Alway free and always well attended (this year’s event is already fully booked) it is marquee event on the photography/visual culture research calendar, specifically in the North.

This year is no exception. A full programme of speakers and times are at the bottom of this post. Each year we have a number of keynote speakers. From a range of visual disciplines, mixing industry knowledge, practical insights and scholarly contributions that enrich the arena we work in. Last year was David Bate and Eugenie Shinkle. The year before, eminent scholar of sociology and visual culture, Jerry Krause from CUNY was our guest. This year the calibre is equally high.

Our first keynote for Fieldwork 2018 is:

Fiona Shields, Head of Photography at the Guardian

 Fiona has over twenty years’ picture editing experience across a range of newspaper titles, was picture editor of the Guardian for nine years before taking up the role of Head of Photography for the Guardian News and Media Group. Throughout her career she has been involved in the coverage of some of the most historic news stories of our time including the events surrounding 9/11 and the subsequent terror attacks in London and across Europe, conflicts around the world from Bosnia to Iraq and Afghanistan, the revolution of the Arab spring and the continuing violence in the middle east, large scale natural disasters such as the earthquakes in Haiti, tsunamis in southern Asia, famine in Sub-Saharan Africa and the humanitarian crises resulting from the growing refugee numbers across the globe. Also a good few UK general elections and political change and upheaval worldwide. 

In addition she has delivered talks at photo festivals, taken part in mentoring programmes for students of photojournalism and has enjoyed judging the Sony World Photography Awards, the UK Picture Editors Guild Awards, the Renaissance Photography Prize to name a few. Last year she was on the jury of the esteemed Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and is a regular nominator for the world famous Prix Pictet Award.

Additional programme details:

Fieldwork 2018

9.00 – Coffee and Registration

9.45 – Introduction – John van Aitken (UCLan)

10.00 – Fiona Shields

10.45 – Q&A – Fiona Shields & John van Aitken

11.00 – Break

11.30 – Hagit Keysar

12.15 – Q&A – Hagit Keysar & Dr Gary Bratchford (UCLan)

 12.30 – 1.30 – Lunch

1.30 – Chris Leslie

2.15 – Q&A – Chris Leslie & John van Aitken

2.30 – Launch of North magazine – Brian J. Morrison (UCLan)

2.45 – Break

3.00 – 3.20 – Mateusz Baj

 3.20 – 3.40 – Alejandra Carles-Tolra

3.40 – Q&A – Mateusz Baj, Alejandra Carles-Tolra  & Daniel Tierney (UCLan)

4.00  – Closing Comments – John van Aitken

For programme details please contact event organiser, John Van Aitken – Jaitken@uclan.ac.uk

Photomontage – The Value of Visual Literacy

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Over the course of the second semester, the first year students have been engaging in a range of visual practice that attest to the world we live in. How we see the world and the way in which the world is seen (or understood) is as much to do with the visual as it is anything else. Understanding the visual, specifically as a social, political, cultural or economic communicator is key, specifically in an age of protest. With that in mind, how do we read images or produce visual narratives. Having explored the history of photomontage, the first year’s were tasked with making their own. Some foreground text (with imagery), others used an assemblage of images to narrate a topical issue, visually, with consideration given the public sphere, social media and geo-political affairs overseas ‘and’ at home, whilst some chose to parody existing visual works, reframing public awareness campaigns to critique the contemporary political landscape of the UK.

Image and text by the students:

Erin Cooke:
My concept for this montage was to capture the main focus in our society when looking at social media, we are more interested in reading about celebrities that have no part in helping the world and instead actually using something that will impact our lives and educate us in politics. I then used all these headlines in my montage to create a message for my generation to start being more aware.

image001

Daina Smith:

My photomontage depicts the Manchester Picadilly protesters last week, with Turkish tanks behind them on the tracks. In the foreground is a hand holding a phone, showing negative and ignorant tweets about the protest. I intended for this to reflect the important reason for these protests taking place, as well as how the general public respond to third-world problems that do not concern them personally. The protesters are disrupting transport in and out of a Manchester station to draw attention to a crucial problem in Afrin, where the Turkish are attempting to carry out an ‘ethnic cleansing’ by taking out the YPG who they believe to be terrorists due to their very left-wing views. They have essentially brought the problem onto the train tracks of Manchester, which is why the tank is here behind them and threatening them. The hand holding a phone suggests a British commuter browsing through twitter, ignorant of the protest, while the tweets show ignorance and annoyance also. They are real tweets selected from the website. This is a comment on how we as a privileged first-world society pay no attention to problems in other places in the world that do not concern us, and react to disruptive exposure of these problems with anger and ignorance.

thumbnail_photomontage

Stephen Fisher:

In 2016, a poster for a new campaign on the UK’s transport network brought outrage to some. As the “See it. Say it. Sorted.” poster is not only racially suggestive but also has a scary resemblance to the images of the Jewish persecution propaganda used in Nazi Germany. The poster shows a suspicious looking Muslim man in the dark foreground and a white woman behind him with the caption “See it. Say it. Sorted.” To me the suggestiveness of this poster comes off entirely racist. So, in response to this poster I created a photomontage using the layout of the “See it. Say it. Sorted.” Poster, but instead filled it with my political beliefs. The antagonist Muslim man in this poster has been replaced with Theresa May, Leader of the Conservative Party and current prime minister. Based on my political beliefs, I believe that she is more dangerous than a Muslim man in a big coat. I then replaced the white women in the background with various protests that pair with my political status and a previous photomontage of Peter Kennards “War Head”. All my political beliefs montaged onto this poster as an advert for the concerns we should all have in this western world and not this racially suggestive poster created by the National Rail and Department of Transport.

The original is on the left, mine is on the right.

Bartlomiej Staszowski – Visiting Lecture

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Last Week we had the great pleasure of spending some time with one of our very talented Photouclan Alumni, fashion photographer Bartlomeij Staszowski. Bart was spending some time with our year 2 students showing the latest directions his work is taking and his journey into industry from UCLan.

Thank you for the advice and inspiration!

Bart also shared his advice and amazing studio lighting skills with us in our workshop time, helping students refine their lighting skills.

jason_1svivi_1salexi_1swebuntitled (2 of 3)roshni_1swebID 1

 

 

She/He/Me – a first year project

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Our first years have just completed a portraiture project using B&W film.

Most of the first years had never shot film before they arrived at UCLan, so getting to this standard in just 12 weeks is remarkable. Big thanks are due to our darkroom guru Jo Garrett and our workshop tutor David Gregory. Great work everyone!

Megan Smith

Megan Smith

Elliott Crampton

Elliott Crampton

Katarina Balasuriya Vazacova

Katarina Balasuriya Vazacova

Chloe Beetham

Chloe Beetham

Stephen Fisher

Stephen Fisher

 

Fieldwork Photography Symposium 2017

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Last week as part of the ‘Great Northern Creative Festival’ Photo UCLAN held our annual fieldwork photography Symposium, this year focussing on Documentary Photography.

We had a fantastic line up of speakers giving their perspectives on the vast and changing landscape of documentary concerns and practices, practitioners; Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Al Baker, Christopher Bethell, Evelina Simkute,  John Darwell, Daniel Tierney,  presenting their projects and methodologies as well as, contemporary theoretical debates and discussions from Thomas Dukes curator of the Open Eye gallery and photographer / author David Bate.

Thank you from everyone at Photo Uclan to all our speakers for your sharing your projects, passions and perspectives with us it was a fascinating, insightful day.

Images by Kenny Brown

Ascension 2017 – degree show

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Ascension 2017 Degree show – Preston Market

Our third year students created an excellent final show with the usual collections of diverse photographic works dealing with a range of photographic approaches and subject matters.

Well done class of 2017 for putting on a great show in an interesting space it was a pleasure viewing the work and seeing the culmination of your efforts over the years with us and a big thank you to Preston Market for collaborating with us and allowing us access to all the various spaces.

Good luck to all of you for the future from all the Photouclan staff!