Brief

Recreate a childhood memory in a photograph. Think carefully about the memory you choose and how you’ll recreate it. You’re free to approach this task in any way you wish.

• Does the memory involve you directly or is it something you witnessed?
• Will you include your adult self in the image (for example, to ‘stand in’ for your childhood self ) or will you ask a model to represent you? Or will you be absent from the image altogether? (You’ll look at the work of some artists who have chosen to depict some aspect of their life without including themselves in the image in the next project.)
• Will you try and recreate the memory literally or will you represent it in a more metaphorical way, as you did in Part Two?
• Will you accompany your image with some text?
• In your learning log, reflect on the final outcome. How does the photograph resemble your memory? Is it different from what you expected? What does it communicate to the viewer? How?It might be interesting to show your photograph to friends or family members – perhaps someone who was there at the time and someone who wasn’t – and see what the image conveys to them.

Summary

The image that resembles my memory is the train window (Img. 1). It turned out much better than I expected and does very much conjure up the feelings of those long journeys looking out of the window . I want it to convey a train journey being taken by a child, but it is hard to step back and look at it as outsiders might. Unfortunately there is no one I can ask who was there. I asked my partner who thought it was a bit too subtle.window. I added the word “Train” in the text to try and put the idea into people heads.

Img. 1 Adventures by Train 1960-1970 (2021) Author

Tracy Moffatt

An Australian artist working in film an photogrpahy ..

“..first came to international prominence in 1989 with the photo series Something More, which was at the forefront of a trend towards staged photography. Her work often uses dark humour to deal with serious issues, and regularly features the artist herself” (Bright, 2010)

Moffat often used the genre of Victorian melodrama and dramatic shadows of early twentieth century German Expressionist film to focus on

…slavery in terms of colonialism, class, sexuality and addiction. Moffatts’ approach to representing the conditions of history gives us an experience of how sociohistorical issues that are normally explored through anthropology and writing can be imaginatively addressed through art” (Cotton, 2014)

Fig. 1 Tracy Moffat “Laudanum” (1999)

It tends to be the significant events that we remember in our lives but what makes them significant can vary greatly. They can be significant because they were good or significant because they were bad. As far as childhood memories are concerned, how good or how bad is determined by the circumstances.

“It is not yet clear why certain experiences are remembered for a lifetime, while so many more are not. The earliest childhood memories recalled by adults are often of emotional events. Although many such memories represent negatively emotional events, many also preserve the happy experiences of childhood (Howes, Siegel, & Brown, 1993). Certainly injuries, such as a playground accident resulting in a broken arm, often persist in adult memory. But also memorable are happy occasions such as an especially enjoyable holiday or time playing with friends on an outing” (Batcho, K Ph.D, 2015)

Moffatts’ series “Scarred for Life” (1994) focuses on the more negative events

“Each photograph documents brief, bitter family moments that are universal in their relatability. The details differ, but we all endure small digs at our self-worth that bring us down and subconsciously teach us about society, how it works, and where we fit (or don’t fit) in” (Ingram, 2018)

Each image has some text which gives the viewer some additional information about what the image is portraying and a year which indicates the year in which it has been styled.

Thoughts and Planning

Before starting the first exercise for this part of the course, I had a brief read through, looking at the assignment and rest of the coursework.  So for the past couple of weeks have been thinking about childhood memories in the hope that I can find something  that will work. Many of these memories are of holidays or trips we took as a family so this as a starting point.

Although package foreign holidays were beginning to emerge it wasn’t something that we ever did as a family. I was born in January 1961 so I see my “childhood” years as being between the early 1960s and early 1970s. Our holidays consisted of visits to friends of the family in places such as Cornwall and Mid wales and time spent in Edinburgh. In Edinburgh we would stay in a city centre apartment, with visits to historical sites and buildings, the cinema, theatre and the Zoo. Sounds rather boring by todays standards but I remember it as being a great time even from a very young age.

I felt the best way of deciding what memory(s) to use for this exercise is to split some of them out, write down what comes to mind and go from there. I have also put in bold any parts of these memories that might be worth taking forward.

Memories of traveling by train mid 1960s to early 1970s

1. The scratchy material seats and the windows, which always seem to get steamed up.
2. The countryside rushing past in between stations.
3. Trying to see the rest of the train out of the window when going round a long bend.
4. Eating sandwiches and drinking orange squash
5. Watching people getting off and then other people getting on when the train stopped at the various stations on the journey.
6. Walls of white tiles
7. Rushing from one platform to another with suitcases to catch a connecting train. I don’t think suitcases with wheels were around then so this must have been hard work for my parents.
8. The rhythmic noise of the train and the changing sounds as it went over points. I didn’t mind travelling in the day but I do remember being quite scared at night when I couldn’t see anything outside the window.
9. Watching my mum, watching the door for my dad .I  always wondered why she was so worried – I understand now, but I had no thoughts whatsoever that he wouldn’t appear and he always did arrive with lots of things to tell us.

Fig. 1 Birmingham New Street Station 1965

I decided to go with the steamed up windows for a couple of reasons. I can do this at home (lockdown still in place) and I wanted to try layering two shots, one showing movement blurry to represent the countryside flashing past (which I remember vividly) and one of the steam on the window. I also wondered if a shot of the lower past of the window would help to show that this was a childs view. I also wanted it to be a straight on view to represent me sitting sideways on the seat staring out of the window.
I took a photo outside in the garden and added a pan filter to simulate movement blur. I then photographed one of our windows with a bit of window frame showing after using a wallpaper steamer to steam up the window. Layered in photoshop and opacity adjusted to allow some of the background movement blur to show through. I also used the eraser tool to simulate a small amount of unevenness for the steam on the windows to replicate the area I would look through. it has been placed low in the window to express the fact that I was quite small and could only see up that far! I added some text to give some context. I would like to have tried the shot with a childs fingers gripping the bottom of the window frame to put the viewer more in the place of the child looking out of the window. Due to current lockdown restrictions this wasn’t possible.

Img. 1 Adventures by Train 1960-1970 (2021) Author

Memories of Cornwall 1960s to early 1970s

1. Saving my pocket money to buy glass floats in the local corner shop. I loved the colours and bubbles in the glass and used to look through them like a kaleidoscope for hours.
2. The first time I was allowed to walk to the corner shop by myself.
3. Walking by the sea when the waves were really high and being amazed.
4. Walking on the sand and finding lots of interesting things to bring home
5. Baking bread in my mums friends kitchen with her mother. I was too small to reach the table and had to stand on a chair.
6. Feeding their dog under the table and getting into trouble
7. Picking fruit and vegetables in the back garden

Fig. 2

I picked up on the kaleidoscope idea and decided to try and get a photograph of an actual image produced by a real kaleidoscope. The I looked through the kaleidoscope the image reminded me of the floats so decided to give it a go. I took one end off the kaleidoscope, sat it on a glass table with a small light shining upwards and aimed my shot down through the tube. I was really surprised at the results and although a bit blurry, with uneven light, I was just pleased that I got anything at all. I used a cheap cardboard kaleidoscope which I found on line.

I used various focus lengths and lighting options to try and get the right feel. Including a spot light and light box. I found the spotlight reminded me more of the sun light and how it reflected on the glass.

Contact sheet 1

I’m quite surprised at the amount of things I can remember considering how young I was, but there is always the possibility that they were not quite as I am remembering them due to the way in which we process memory over time.

Brief

Nigel Shafran

Go to the artist’s website and look at the other images in Shafran’s series.

You may have noticed that Washing-up is the only piece of work in Part Three created by a man. It is also the only one with no human figures in it, although family members are referred to in the captions.

• Did it surprise you that this was taken by a man? Why?
• In your opinion does gender contribute to the creation of an image?
• What does this series achieve by not including people?
• Do you regard them as interesting ‘still life’ compositions?Make some notes in your learning log.

Fig.1 Shafran, Three bean soup, cauliflower vegetable cheese. Morning coffee and croissants . From the series Washing-up (2000)

By not including people in the images it allows the viewer to use their imagination, to “investigate” the scenes, to find clues as to who the person or people are. I noticed that there was some text beneath each image both in Shafrans’ book and in the course notes but not in the images on Shafran website. The images stand out with and without the text but with the text there is more of an idea of who the people or person is, without it, it is up to the viewer to use the clues in the image and come up with more of their own thoughts.

Fig.2 Shafran, 31 January 2000 Horrible crumpets and Jill’s jam, reship tea, smoked salmon on bread and alfalfa sprout salad, apple, leftover veg haggis and scitan spinach and burnt rice to come!

Do I regard them as interesting “still life” compositions? Yes I do see them as still life compositions in their own right but I feel they are more than that as Brett Rogers wrote in response to Shafrons’ work in the British Council and the Photographer’s Gallery Exhibition

Washing-Up 2000 comprises an extended series (totalling 170 images produced over the course of a year) in which Shafran documented his daily routine (what he ate and how he felt) in various domestic settings, mostly at home but sometimes abroad. Taken with a large-format camera using only available light, and in most cases long exposures, the resulting still lifes provide a formal and personal diary of a certain place and time. Formal elements, such as a bright green washing-up bowl, yellow gloves, stainless steel colander, recur throughout the series, accentuated and transformed through dramatic changes in light and atmosphere. As in traditional still-life painting, in which specific objects such as the hour-glass and human skulls were introduced to symbolise mortality and the brevity of life, here the recurrence and disappearance of certain motifs and changing atmospheric conditions within the series suggest the passage of time and contingencies of daily life. (Rogers, n.d.)

Bibliography

Figure 1-3
Shafran, N., 2000. [image]
Available at: <http://nigelshafran.com/category/washing-up-2000-2000/
[Accessed 12 February 2021].

Rogers, B., n.d. Brett Rogers, Reality Check : Nigel Shafran. [online] Nigelshafran.com.
Available at: <http://nigelshafran.com/brett-rogers-reality-check/&gt;
[Accessed 12 February 2021].

Sattari, M. and Mousavi, S., 2013. The Role of Gender in Photographic Works: Do Men and Women Capture Different Photographs?. [online] Ijwr.ut.ac.ir.
Available at: <https://ijwr.ut.ac.ir/article_50138.html&gt;
[Accessed 16 February 2021].

Brief

• Is there any sense in which Lee’s work could be considered voyeuristic or even exploitative? Is she commenting on her own identity, the group identity of the people she photographs, or both?
• Would you agree to Morrissey’s request if you were enjoying a day on the beach with your family? If not, why not?
• Morrissey uses self-portraiture in more of her work, namely Seven and The Failed Realist. Look at these projects online and make some notes in your learning log.

Nikki S Lee

Nikki s Lee is a Korean born visual artist best know for her work Projects (1997–2001).

“She is best known for her “Projects” series (1997–2001), in which she attempted to assimilate into various social and subcultural groups—among them young punks, senior citizens, yuppies, and hip-hop fans—by precisely mimicking their styles and mannerisms. She would appear with them in casual group snapshots taken by friends or passersby, the amateur point-and-shoot images reinforcing Lee’s attempt at verisimilitude” (Vogel, 2020)

Fig. 1 Nikki S. Lee: The Hip Hop Project (2), 2001

Fig.2 Nikki S. Lee: The Punk Project (5), 1997

• Is there any sense in which Lee’s work could be considered voyeuristic or even exploitative? Is she commenting on her own identity, the group identity of the people she photographs, or both?

When i first looked at Lees work, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I really wasn’t sure why and to a certain extend Im still not entirely sure. After more reading a research I started to get a better idea of what she was trying to achieve through the Projects and this only continued to make me more uncomfortable. The question wether this work could be seen as voyeuristic or exploitative starts with the question of wether the people she was integrating with, knew that she was taking on this persona and were given credit. Lee did not know how well known and valuable her work would. These were certainly things that contributed to my feeling of unease. This was an early work and I wonder if there is some immaturity at play here? I agree with Lee when she says that individual identity is fluid but why she should select this way of expressing it could be seen as either insensitive, immature or perhaps down to her need to perform.

“Lee believes that individual identity is fluid and that her Projects were extensions of herself” (Nikki S. Lee | Artist Profile | NMWA, n.d.)

“For Lee, it seems, these identities are all fundamentally subject to convention; absentminded viewers might be fooled, but she is not deceiving the people whose lives she is temporarily sharing: After all, there’s no way this Korean could convince a group of Latinos, for example, that she’s one of them, though it is quite possible for them to act as if that were the case. The people who pose with Lee are her collaborators but they don’t have to understand why she’s doing what she does; they only need to be willing to play along” (Schwabsky, 1999)

Other aspects of her work that made me uneasy was the way in which she pigeon holed some ethnic groups, cultures or labelled groups that are now seen or should be seen as inappropriate.

“The bar for NO when it comes to blackface and brownface must be: All kinds, every kind!   

Darkening one’s skin to pose for a series of photographs in a community one has no affinity with, does not belong to, and as an entertainment project with ongoing profit plan—this is not an interpretation of blackface. It’s blackface” (Kim, 2016)

There is definitely a divide when it comes to Lees work, with a whole range of cultural, ethical and political issues that at times are criticised and applauded.

“Lee’s debut earned further praise from the New York Times. In his review, Holland Cotter suggests that Lee’s work occupies a “post-ethnic” position that rejects essentializing notions of identity. He was especially impressed by Lee’s bleach-blonde persona in the Ohio Project (1999), where she was photographed alongside blue-collar white Midwesterners. Her ability to lampoon upper-middle-class white culture was also applauded. In a 2001 article for Art Journal, Maurice Berger analyzes her pitch-perfect emulation of preppy style in the Yuppie Project (1998) as a critical take on whiteness” (Vogel, 2020)

I doubt I would be able to gain enough information to make a truly informed decision about exploitation on Lees part but in light of what I have discovered via the internet and books I am still uncomfortable with her Projects. I am in fact slightly more uncomfortable that I was before I started.

Trish Morrissey

• Would you agree to Morrissey’s request if you were enjoying a day on the beach with your family? If not, why not?
• Morrissey uses self-portraiture in more of her work, namely Seven and The Failed Realist. Look at these projects online and make some notes in your learning log.

Trish Morrissey is an Irish photographer who also works in films and video. She describes her work as

a study of the language of photography through still and moving images (Morrissey, nd)

In Morrissey work Front (2005-2007) she travelled to beaches in both the UK and Australia and asked groups of family or friends if she could photograph them in a group shot, with Morrissey herself replacing one of the females.

Fig. 3 Morrissey, T (2005-2007) Katy McDonnell 2007

Fig. 3 Morrissey, T (2005-2007) June Marsh 2007

It was interesting to note that the title for each image is the name of the woman she replaced.

“Each photograph is named after the replaced woman who, in her presence-absence, becomes the fulcrum of the image and its material author” (Bastwick, 2005)

Fig.4 Morrissey, T (2005-2007) Haley Coles 2006

Fig.5 Morrissey, T (2005-2007) Chloe Gwynne 2005

Morrissey is addressing the notion of borders and boundaries

“using the family group and the beach setting as metaphors……These highly performative photographs are shaped by chance encounters with strangers, and by what happens when physical and psychological boundaries are crossed; both the cuckoo and mythological “shape-shifters” are evoked” (Morrissey 2009)

The people in the images look very relaxed and natural. Unless you are aware of the situation it would be hard to work out that one of them is a complete stranger. I did wonder why this was the case. My own experience of taking photos of people I don’t know, is that they immediately change as soon as they know or think they might be in range of my camera. In this case of course, they were not having their photo taken by a complete stranger, they were having it taken by a family member or friend. Most of them are looking at the camera and therefore their partner, wife, mother or friend. They are also then not looking at the stranger in their midst.

Boothroyd asks is to think about our own reaction if we were asked to participate in one of Morrisseys’ shoots

• Would you agree to Morrissey’s request if you were enjoying a day on the beach with your family? If not, why not?

Along with a large proportion of the population, I really don’t like having my photograph taken or ever take photographs of myself. My initial reaction was therefor no. However when I thought about it and as long as I was the person being replaced (and taking the shot) I might well agree. I would off course have to be happy that she was going to use the images for the purpose she was stating and would want some form of signed document to ensure the images were not used for other purposes.

Her work Seven Years (2001 – 2004) was born out of her previous work Twenty two (2000-2001)

“Morrissey’s impetus for this new direction was born out of the discussions and remembrances that her Twentytwo project catalysed within her family.  A box of photographs (into which her parents added their Twentytwo portraits) became a focal point for shared, disputed and reinvented memories of her family’s history” (Cotton, 2004)

Fig. 6 July 22nd 1972 (2003) © Trish Morrissey

Fig. 7 April 16th 1967 (2003) © Trish Morrissey

Many of us are fascinated by “family photographs” and the rise in interest of people to find out about their ancestry has only fast forwarded this fascination. Whether its family snaps of people we know and immediate family or long gone ancestors, it seems we are constantly intrigued.

It’s hard to pin down what the fascination is! I guess there is the acceptance of time passing, the changing faces of self and family, the sadness and comfort of seeing people we have lost, the changing fashions and landscapes and perhaps the added comfort of belonging then, and still belonging now.

“For all of us, our snaps can be the compelling mediators of the re-appraisal of identities and familial relationships. Seven Years became Morrissey’s attempt, in collaboration with her elder sister, to make the subject of these photographs the subtexts of family relationships that are embedded in the formulas of family photographs.  To think of Seven Years as a re-staging of specific family photographs is inaccurate, or at least only part of the ingredients to these distilled ‘family’ photographs” (Cotton, 2004)

Fig. 8 April 16th 1984 (2003) © Trish Morrissey

Fig 9 January 25th 1979 (2003) © Trish Morrissey

Another work by Morrissey is The Failed Realist (2011) also relates to family and involved her young daughter. Face painting is a well known pastime for children and adults alike but as the title suggests this series is more complex. As she herself explains

“This photographic series was made in collaboration with my daughter when she was between the ages of four and five years. Face painting is a rainy day activity that we both enjoy.  Once her motor skills evolved sufficiently well for her to control a paintbrush, she wanted to paint me rather than be painted.  Instead of the usual motifs of butterfly, or flower, she would decide to paint something from her immediate experience – a movie she had just watched, a social event, a right of passage, or a vivid dream.  Beyond the innocence of the child’s intention, more sinister themes such as clowns, carnival and the grotesque are evoked by these mask like paintings” (Morrissey, n.d.)

The title of the series comes from child development psychology after observation of his young daughter by the psychologist Georges-Henri Luquet. As Morrissey explains

Between the ages of four to six children are often more verbally than visually articulate.  This means that what they wish to express through mark making is often beyond their physical skill. The psychologist Georges-Henri Luquet (1927/2001) called this The Failed Realist stage – the child’s desire to represent his or her world is hampered by motor, cognitive and graphic obstacles that will be overcome with time, but for the moment, their interpretation is flawed (Morrissey, n.d.)

I find this series very difficult to understand. I am not sure what is is portraying and can’t get find any clarity in the explanations of Morrissey or others. I find the images rather unsettling, i want to know who’s idea it was, if her daughter was present when the actual autographs were taken and how much fun (or not) was had during the actual face painting itself. For example, the image called Party Girl is reminiscent of females with their mascara running due to crying or  at the end of a night “partying” looking decidedly worse for wear. I have to assume that her daughter has no notion of this and it is my own interpretation. She may of course witnessed friends or family members with less than perfect makeup and as such would be in no way a criticism of Morrisssey’s parenting.

Fig.10 Party Girl (2011) © Trish Morrissey

It seems that I’m not the only one who finds the images unsettling

“Even if we acknowledge that Morrissey’s face was animated during the moment of painting (rather than resolutely neutral and ambivalent), the mood and ideas expressed across the photographs can be unsettling.  Childhood is a complex negotiation rather than an idyll, and the particular age charted through these photographs is one where there is a peak in the occurrence of nightmares and irrational fears.  In Penny the grim genie-like face with the swirling black marks is possibly less scary at rest than in motion, and both Party Girl with outsize-black tears and Lady Bird with the red, black and purple face with the single black tear, seem likely to be tragic even with a smile”

Fig. 11 Ladybird(2011) © Trish Morrissey

Bibliography

Morrissey, T., n.d. Trish Morrissey. [online] Trishmorrissey.com.
Available at: <http://www.trishmorrissey.com/works_pages/work-tfr/statement.html&gt;
[Accessed 6 February 2021].

Vogel, W., 2020. Nikki S. Lee Provokes Debates about Cultural Appropriation – ARTnews.com. [online] Artnews.com.
Available at: <https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/nikki-s-lees-shapeshifting-art-cultural-appropriation-1202682096/&gt;
[Accessed 4 February 2021].

Figures 1-2
Nikki s. Lee Available at: <https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/nikki-s-lees-shapeshifting-art-cultural-appropriation-1202682096/&gt;
[Accessed 4 February 2021].

Schwabsky, B., 1999. OPENINGS: NIKKI S. LEE. [online] Artforum.com.
Available at: <https://www.artforum.com/print/199907/openings-nikki-s-lee-32240&gt;
[Accessed 4 February 2021].

NMWA. n.d. Nikki S. Lee | Artist Profile | NMWA. [online]
Available at: <https://nmwa.org/art/artists/nikki-s-lee/&gt;
[Accessed 4 February 2021].

Kim, E., 2016. Nikki S. Lee’s “Projects”—And the Ongoing Circulation of Blackface, Brownface in “Art”. [online] contemptorary.
Available at: <https://contemptorary.org/nikki-s-lees-projects-and-the-ongoing-circulation-of-blackface-brownface-in-art/&gt;
[Accessed 5 February 2021].

Morrissey, T., n.d. Trish Morrissey | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: <https://www.lensculture.com/trish-morrissey&gt; [Accessed 5 February 2021].

Figures 3-5
Morrissey, T., (2005-2007). [image]
Available at: <https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/34/morrissey.php&gt;
[Accessed 5 February 2021].

Bastwick, D., 2005. Morrissey | CCC Strozzina. [online] Strozzina.org.
Available at: <http://www.strozzina.org/en/artists/trish-morrissey/&gt;
[Accessed 5 February 2021].

Cotton, C., 2004. Seven Years Part 1 by Charlotte Cotton | Photoworks. [online] Photoworks. Available at: <https://photoworks.org.uk/seven-years-part-1/&gt;
[Accessed 6 February 2021].

Figure 6 -9
Morrisey, T., (2001-2004) Seven Years [Images]
Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/trish-morrissey?modal=project-230591
[Accessed 6 February 2021].