Folio: my proposal

EDGE

Brief description

This project will focus on built and altered environments and explore ‘edge’ as both an idea about space and a place where things change. My goal is to produce a cohesive series of colour images that provokes an emotional response and inspires people to wonder about what happens at borders and boundaries.

Rationale/Concept

In 2004, as I looked at Sean Scully’s abstract paintings in the ‘Body of Light’ exhibition at the NGA in Canberra, I was drawn to the quality of the blocks of colour and the transition from one block of colour to another. As Florence Ingleby noted in the introduction to Resistance and Persistence (Scully, 2006, p7):

…his paintings work their magic on the eye and mind…when first encountered, (they) look very simple: these bricks of colour, which seem so effortlessly built, offer an unsettlingly complex emotional potential, with an almost physical depth of possibility.

Since then I have wondered what this means in the context of photography. Responding in a very random way, with camera in hand, I have pursued an exploration of edge[1] in built, natural and altered environments. In the built environment, I have documented blocks of colour and the detail where buildings, and parts of buildings meet; in altered environments I have documented where natural and constructed elements intersect and in the natural environment, I have documented the places where there is change from one element to another such as sea to sand.

Now I want to analyse, expand on and extend the work I’ve been making in a more purposeful and connected way. Photographically and conceptually this provides an opportunity to explore:

• Space and place (with an awareness of context, location, geography, scale, change, borders, boundaries and liminal spaces)
• Perception and affect (with an awareness of visual language, emotion and sentiment).

Research question/s

Key questions:

• Thinking about both space and place, how can you create a visual narrative that explores the quality and affect of edge?
• How can a visual narrative promote questioning about human concerns related to borders and boundaries?

Additional methodological questions might include:

• What have I already photographed and what do I already know about edge?
• How do visual documents tell stories about space and place?
• What different ways might edge, as a space and a location, be depicted?
• Which theorists and philosophers have explored ideas of edge?
• Which artists/photographers have explored ideas of edge? What have they created and how do they talk about their work?
• What techniques might be used to manipulate images to produce a complex idea about edge?

METHODOLOGY

I plan to begin with an analysis of my past practice and the work of other artist and photographers. I will use this analysis as a basis for developing my ideas and producing a folio that demonstrates my extended and expanded understanding of this idea.

To achieve this outcome, I will begin by creating an inventory of existing photographs and then examining and analysing these images. Alongside this process, I will be making new images and experimenting with them. Throughout I will be engaging in research connected to my practice and finally focus on creating a new narrative. Each of these aspects of my work is explained in more detail in the following sections.

Creating an inventory of images

I will create an inventory of my existing images by collecting and grouping any edge photographs I’ve taken between 2004 and 2017. In the first instance, I will group existing images into two folders: built environments and altered environments. As this process unfolds further groupings and sub-groupings may emerge.

Examining and analysing images

As each group of images takes shape I will analyse what I have achieved to date and make notes about the physical, depictive and mental levels (Shore, 2007).

Making new images

Having collected and examined my existing images I will:

•  create a plan for making new work and
• experiment with analogue and digital manipulation to create new work.

I am planning to experiment with a range of cameras including a Nikon D800, a Mamiya RZ67, a pin hole camera and a Holga.

Working/playing with images

This activity will involve experimentation with techniques such as:

• Scanning, scenography
• Interfering with images by inverting, changing tones, moving and blurring
• Stripping, adding or collaging
• Using textual evidence as image and texture
• Examining colour palettes
• Identifying and creating patterns
• Seeking connections and distinctions and
• Exploring assumptions.

Building a narrative

Once I have a group of images that have the capacity to tell a story I will begin sequencing images so that the resulting non-linear narrative:

• Moves the viewer back and forth, from one space/place to another
• Demands interactivity from the viewer/reader
• Values the relationship between images (on a wall or pages or slides)
• Builds layers
• Considers texture, pattern, colour
• Explores tension and
• Promotes questions.

Researching

My research will be focused on:

• Theories of space and place including cultural and human geography
• Affect Theory
• Expanded documentary
• The representation of space and place in literature, art and photography including street photography, documentary photography and abstract photography

References that will provide a beginning for each area of research are included in the reference list below.

Context

I see my project connecting to multiple contexts. From a theoretical perspective, setting a focus on space and place leads to a connection with human and cultural geographers such as Yi-fu Tuan, Neil Smith and Doreen Massey. In addition, seeking a connection between the perception of space, place and emotion leads to affect theory.

At the moment, I see the project as abstract in conception and therefore Lyle Rexer (2009), who tracks the place of abstraction in photography, will provide a valuable a starting point. In research about abstraction in photography I have been drawing inspiration from photographers including Richard Caldicott, Wolfgang Tillmans (Abstract Pictures), James Welling and Shrine Gill

However, I also believe this project is connected to other fields of photography including:

• Street photography including Aaron Siskind and Walker Evans’ (Colour accidents)
• Documentary photography including Silvio Wolf (Chance series) and Richard Misrach (Border Cantos)
• Architectural photography including Sean Scully (Manhattan Shut series), Roland Fischer (Façade), Randy West (Lines of sight) and Andreas Gursky (Browns) and
• Photographic collage including: Zoë Croggon and Melinda Gibson.

Finally, I can see connections with other artists:

• Abstract painters including: Robert and Sonia Delaunay; Burhan Dogançay; Richard Diebenkorn; Gordon Matta-Clarke; Sean Scully and
• Writers including Tim Winton.

Expected outcomes

In bringing this project to a satisfying conclusion I image that I will have achieved a range of things. Looking to the end of the process I would like my project to culminate in a cohesive series of images that can be shared with others via an exhibition, a book and a new web site. On the way, I expect to learn a lot about my own practice and other people’s practice and I hope that this will make me a more thoughtful and conceptual photographer. From a technical perspective, my goal is to gain experience in using cameras that I haven’t used before and to gain a deeper understanding about matching camera choice with projects. Finally, I hope to develop more skill in the manipulation of photographs to enhance the telling of the story.

Timeline for Semester 1

Project activity	March	April	May	June
Creating inventory of existing photographs
Analysing existing photographs
Making new photographs
Playing with new photographs
Researching
Building a narrative

REFERENCES

Theories of space and place

Massey, Doreen. 1991, "A Global Sense of Place", Marxism Today, June, pp. 24-29.

Smith, Neil. 1993, "Homeless/global: scaling places" in Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, eds. J. Bird, B. Curtis & T. Putman et al, Routledge, New York, pp. 87-119.

Tuan, Yi-fu. 1977, Space and place: the perspective of experience, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Perception and affect

Gregg, M. & Seigworth, G.J. (eds) 2010, The Affect Theory Reader, Duke University Press, Durham, NC.

Lefebvre, Henri. 1991, The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford, UK & Cambridge, USA.

Photography

Bright, Susan 2011, Art Photography Now, Revised and Expanded Edition, Thames and Hudson, London.

Howarth, Sophie & Stephen McLaren 2010, Street Photography Now, Thames & Hudson, London.

Keenan, T. & Steyerl, H. "What is a document?: an exchange between Thomas Keenan and Hito Steyerl", Aperture, pp. 59-64.

Rexer, Lyle. 2009, The edge of vision: the rise of abstraction in photography, Aperture, New York.

Ritchie, F. "Making Pictures Matter: photojournalism, documentary, and the citizen" in Bending the Frame, Aperture, New York, pp. 47-60.

Shore, Stephen. 2007, The nature of photographs, Phaidon, London & New York.

Thompson, N. & Azoulay, A. "Photography and Its Citizens", Aperture, pp. 52-57.

Wells, L. (ed) 2015, Photography: a critical introduction, Fifth edn, Routledge, Oxon & New York.

Abstract art

Vallier, Dora. 1970, Abstract Art, Orion, New York.

Sean Scully

Carrier, David. 2004, Sean Scully, Thames & Hudson, London.

Danto, Arthur, Mia Fineman, Edward Lucie-Smith. 2004, The Color of Time: the photographs of Sean Scully, Steidl, Göttingen.

Escher, Danilo & Kelly Grovier. 2015, Sean Scully. Land Sea, Skira Editore, Italy.

Ingleby, F. (ed) 2006, Sean Scully Resistance and Persistence: selected writings, Merrell Publishers Limited, London & New York.

O'Sullivan, Marc, Beate Reifenschein & Sean Scully. 2014, Sean Scully Figure/Abstract, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern.

Rainbird, Sean. 2015, Sean Scully, National Gallery of Ireland, Ireland.

Scully, Sean & Colm Tólbin. 2007, Sean Scully: walls of Aran, Thames and Hudson, London.

Scully, Sean & Danilo Eccher. 1996, Sean Scully, Charta, Milano.

Other artists

Damase, Jaques. 1972, Sonia Delaunay: rhythms and colours, Thames & Hudson, London.

Dogançay, Burhan. 2003, Burhan Dogançay: works on paper 1950-2000, Hudson Hills Press, New York & Manchester.

Nordland, Gerald. 1987, Richard Diebenkorn, Rizzoli, New York.

Literature

Winton, Tim. 2015, Island Home: a landscape memoir, Hamish Hamilton, Australia.

Winton, Tim. 1993, Land's Edge, Pan Macmillan Publishers Australia, Sydney.

Mischkulnig, Martin & Tim Winton. 2009, Smalltown , Hamish Hamilton, Camberwell, Vic.

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[1] I have purposefully chosen not to use the edge or the plural edges because I am not thinking of just one thing or even a group of things that can be easily bundled together.