In this half-day symposium, speakers will explore contemporary photography through poetry, critical debate and art discourse to creatively examine the position of tactile, physical images taking up space in a tech-complex, claustrophobic world.
Confirmed Speakers:
Peter Kennard - Peter Kennard is a London born and based photomontage artist and Senior Research Reader in Photography, Art and the Public Domain at the Royal College of Art. He is Britain’s foremost political artist and has been at the cutting edge of global political image making since the Vietnam War. Unofficial War Artist, the first major retrospective of Kennard's work was held at the Imperial War Museum, London for one year from May 2015, and his retrospective Off Message is currently on show at Mac Birmingham until 27th November. For Hard Focus, Peter will discuss his work and the impact it has on the spaces where it inhabits.
Karen Harvey - Karen Harvey founded Shutter Hub on the basis of her wide experience of working in the photography industry, not only as an award winning photographer, but as a writer, consultant, curator and mentor. She has a special interest in helping photographers to achieve their full potential. Recently she has spoken at the National Photography Symposium, London Art Fair, the Festival of Creative Industries, and across the UK at universities and colleges. Karen delivers portfolio reviews and professional development sessions at events such as Free Range, Photomonth and FORMAT International Photography Festival. For Hard Focus, Karen will be discussing the digital-physical relationship in GIRL TOWN, Shutter Hub's upcoming exhibition curated from an Instagram open call.
Anna Douglas - Originally studying Art History and Film Studies, Anna Douglas has pursued a successful career as an independent curator of exhibitions including film, photography, sound and performance, as well as authoring a number of publications. Since 2006, she has pursued an interest in archival photography, brought into dialogue with contemporary photographic approaches, resulting in dynamic ‘revisionist‘ exhibitions and publications. In 2012, she came across the ‘lost’ photographs of Northern Shirley Baker, and has subsequently devoted her time researching this little known photographer. In 2015, she curated Women and Children; and Loitering Men, opening at The Photographer’s Gallery, London, going on to be one of their largest attended exhibitions. She is a PhD candidate of the University of Leeds, focussing on the work of Baker. For Hard Focus, Anna will explores curating with post-war photography, with a focus on the work of Shirley Baker and Roger Mayne, and the creative and conceptual challenges and limitations that arise due to 'the value' placed on and within the vintage object.
Andrea Allan - Andrea Allan is a photographer and writer. She has recently completed an MA in photography at Manchester School of Art. Allan’s work explores the real and imaginary in an attempt to understand the links between our past, present and future. Combining photography with text she is able to weave past narratives into the fabric of present places, casting old social and political understandings in a contemporary light. She's interested in how photography and text can be exhibited whether it be exhibition space, website or artist book.
Moira Lovell - Moira Lovell is an artist whose work deals with photography, gender and power. She studied photography at the Kent Institute of Art and Design and the London College of Communication as wells as Gender, Media and Culture at Goldsmiths University, London. Moira is a lecturer in photography at the University of Salford and a distance-learning photography tutor for the Open College of the Arts. For Hard Focus, Moira will explore the ‘excess’ of photography; and "those photographs that were never meant to be tactile or physical. Made, not for the gallery wall, the paper-pasted billboard or shiny magazines. These are amateur snaps of stuff for sale, made by women."
Alexandra Hughes - Based in Newcastle, Alexandra Hughes is a visual artist with a practice in the field of expanded photography, undertaking physical explorations of the photographic medium, moving from the 2D to 3D, bringing image and material together to redefine the photographic object to explore our mediated relationship with the landscape through technology and seemingly immaterial, ubiquitous photographic images in the current digital age. She is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at Northumbria University. For Hard Focus, Alexandra will question both the effects of engaging with the photographic image and it’s tactile, spatial and temporal dimensions (and how it expands ideas of the photographic object in contemporary fine art) and consider, through the mediation of the photographic object how can a wilderness be constructed and explored as a site.
Martin Shepley - Martin Shepley is a poet, essayist and student of occulture, and writes under the nom de guerre ‘Malleable Art’. His work has been published in various anthologies and magazines, and he has collaborated with a diverse array of artists to create bespoke pieces of text for international and local exhibitions. His work deliberates the unknown and the unseen and aims to contextualise the mystery of the everyday. For Hard Focus,Martin will be performing a spoken word piece titled ‘Hardly In Focus’ looking at the enigma that is the contained image and whether a person, place or object can ever be truly ‘captured’ on film.
Hard Focus: The Physicality of Photography will accompany the photography group exhibition Hard Focus, also on show at ArtWork Atelier.
Tickets: Standard - £5.00 / Students - £3.50 (+ event brite booking fee)
For further information and to book - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hard-focus-the-physicality-of-photography-a-symposium-at-nightlight-darkroom-tickets-28087699064?aff=efbevent