Further Research and Curation Masterclass: Maps and Networks #4

Tuesday 1st December

As we will be having to collaborate with the class to curate our own exhibition for Maps and Networks, we had a meeting with Caroline to give us more inspiration and ideas for how this could be done. Seeing as we have never had the opportunity to properly curate our own exhibition, i was very glad to have someone with her knowledge and experience to take us through her creative journey and show us how we could apply certain things to our own artistic practices. 

Due to covid-19, Jeremiah had already warned us that we will need to curate for both a physical and an online exhibition, just in case of another lockdown scenario. Caroline took us through ways that we could start to imagine how we'd re-create artistic spaces outside of the gallery. We looked at quite a few artists who took a more unconventional route when coming to exhibit and showcase their work. It was really interesting just to get a sense of what is possible. It's also exciting to begin to imagine how we could curate work in different, imaginative ways. 

William Kentridge, 'Whilst spreading the apricot jam' 2017 at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh.

Richard Mosse, 'Incoming', 2017: 'Incoming' charts mass migration and human displacement unfolding across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. 

http://www.richardmosse.com/projects/incoming#

Edmund Clarke, 'A place called Hate'.

Louise Anne Wilson, 'Dorothy's Room', Peter Scott Gallery, 2018.

Thinking about research for my Maps and Networks idea alongside this talk

Six Degrees of Separation:

-Struggling to find a theme for maps and networks, i started to research the 'six degrees of separation theory', as it's rather broad and would be a good starting place for inspiration. 

-Connection: Worldwide. 

-Narrative potential: A narrative can be formed through the connections that people make and the potential people they could meet due to the six degrees theory.

-However, because this is already such a solid theory with no real room for change, it could become limiting when trying to think of how i could reflect it in my work and make it unique to me.

-Still thinking about this theory as a starting point for inspiration, i started to think about how people interact when they first meet. In an imaginary scenario, if a friend of mine introduced me to someone they knew that could maybe gain me contacts for a career, the only way i'd properly be able to form a connection with them would be to get to know them. What's the best way to get to know someone and form a connection? Exchange stories. We find comfort in being let into someone else's life and it allows us to let our guard down, as you can begin to relate and find similarities between both people.

-Six degrees of separation means that we can potentially be in contact with people on the other side of the world. We are all linked by chains of acquaintances, so we are just six introductions away from anyone amongst the 6.6 billion people on this planet. Taking this into account and thinking about art connections as well as people, in our masterclass with Caroline Molloy, she mentioned the project 'Photoworks Festival'. This brings new meaning to the idea of an exhibition and connects people worldwide. 

The Festival is an international Platform that doesn't have a physical venue. It brings new experiences to audiences and opens up new ways to encounter photography. I really like this idea as it's lie a festival in a box and allows different audiences to curate the exhibition in different ways; breathing new life and context into the art each time. 

The websites' front page showcases all the artists featured in this project:

https://photoworks.org.uk/

The 'Festival in a box' concept is the perfect substitute for physical exhibitions, as it brings the exhibition to you. It enables you to explore through a plethora of brilliant art without leaving the comfort of your own home. I do miss the physicality of actually travelling to an exhibition and being in the same room as the work, as it is a completely different and more authentic experience. However, seeing Photoworks' ability to re-imagine how we navigate an exhibition got me wanting to search the internet for more. With only a few clicks, i could be viewing art work from a city miles away from me. I think in times like these as well, social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have been really useful for showcasing and sharing work all over the world. I find so many wonderful examples of art, design, music etc on these platforms every day. You do find yourself spiralling and sometimes not taking the time to see who the artist is however. It does become too easy to just like something, share it and be done with it. I feel like the good thing about websites like Photoworks is that you go onto it with a purpose, and the artists names are showcased before you're even exposed to the work. With a purpose to find new artists, I started to look at 'The Photographers Gallery', London website (https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/) as they always seem to have really exciting things going on. I scrolled down and one image immediately captured my attention:

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/evgenia-arbugaeva-hyperborea-stories-russian-arctic

As soon as i saw it i began imagining up scenarios/narratives for the location; an empty, eerie and other-worldy place. I wanted to know more, so i clicked onto it to hopefully see more images and also to find out who the artist was. Evgenia Arbugaeva had created an exhibition called 'Hyperborea- Stories from the Russian Arctic'. The words that stuck out the most to me was 'stories' and 'arctic'. Through searching the internet for less than five minutes, I had already found art from a place i had never come across or had any real connection to. 'Stories' stood out to me because it implies that there's a narrative within her images; stories of the people from this mysterious place. 'Arctic' stood out because it's a place i've never been to and a place i feel doesn't get much media coverage, so i've never really been exposed to what life is like there. So, to me, the Russian Arctic is like a story; a piece of fiction and a place i have never been or really seen. It's beautiful, magical and home to people who have a completely different way of living. Before i saw these pictures, this place didn't exist to me. I find this really interesting. There's so much out in the world that we don't know about and so many stories to be told and shared. Her images however, don't make me want to base a project on the Russian Arctic, it's just that the beauty of this place makes your mind run wild with different stories. There's a narrative behind every single photograph. The way she's taken them makes them look cinematic and like film stills, so it's hard to believe that these are documents of real life as opposed to fiction.

I found a short video of the artist taking us through the meaning behind her work and the process. In this short film, her photos are shown while she narrates over them. I really like how this looks and can see it as a potential way to tell a story digitally; have the camera pan out of an image so it almost looks cinematic, with a narration over the top.

A lot of her photos are of locations that have either been abandoned for a long period of time or are very remote and out of touch with the rest of the world. Her images give us a window into this different world and we get lost in them. She mentioned about her time in an abandoned town; architecturally magnificent buildings very particular to that place coated in snow, and how she found herself unexpectedly surrounded by the green glow of an aurora in the sky. She used this brief time to take a series of photographs while the town was blanketed in this aurora; green light pouring into windows of abandoned buildings and rolling over huge structures. The fact that she had limited time to capture this natural filter almost is what makes these photo's even more interesting and poignant. We are always drawn to the unknown and i think that's what makes these so special. There's also a great sense of narrative within her images which i love. 

Hyperborea brings together four ‘chapters’ presenting visual stories of life in the Russian Arctic and continues a fascination with her homeland. The first, Weather Man (2013) documents the life of Slava, a dedicated station-master living in solitude in a remote meteorological post in the far north.

 In 2018-19, supported by a National Geographic Society Storytelling Fellowship, Arbugaeva returned to the region, travelling to three more outposts in the extreme north of Russia: a lighthouse on the isolated Kanin peninsula populated only by the keepers and their dog; Dikson, a now derelict ghostly town that yielded the tremendous spectacle of the aurora borealis during Arbugaeva’s stay there; and finally the far eastern region of Chukotka, home to the Chukchi community, who still maintain the traditions of their ancestors, living off the land and sea with Walrus and whale meat as the main components of their diet.  

 

 

Each group of images reveals both the fragility and resilience of the Arctic land and its inhabitants, illuminating the connections between nature, sky, earth, light and dark and exposing the threats being wrought by environmental change. Her precisely composed, jewel-like images glow with rich other-worldly colour, bristle with the raw electric energy of the climate and show the quiet intensity of lives borne out in solitude and extremes.

 

'Hyperborea' Exhibition at the Photographers Gallery, London

What i have got from this research is that stories are at the core of what connects us. Stories are a network in their own right. We rely on stories to tell us about people, places, ways of life etc.. They're a network of information, whether that's fictional or non-fictional information. I want to try and create a series of fictional stories that transport people to a place they've never imagined before. 

This photograph in particular makes me think of film stills; the lighting, the central placement of the character etc. It's also just a beautiful image and you feel as if you have a secret window into this man's life. 

The questions now are:

I definitely want to include narration and possibly create a soundscape. Narration would make my work more immersive and interactive for the audience. 

I also definitely want it to be visual as well as auditory. The narration will tell the story of the image, scene or photograph (yet to be decided).

-Will i create purely fictional stories? Purely documentary style stories? A mix of both?

-What will inspire these stories? I will need to do research, i can't just pluck them out of thin air. 

-Will i tell the stories through photography like Evgenia and have narration over the top?

-Will i tell the stories through illustrations and add digital elements with narration over the top?

-Will i create little sets to hold each story? Maybe use projections or photography within it? 

-Will the stories be like a conventional fictional narrative or will they be poetry? 

-How many different stories will i create? Will they all share the same theme? Will i create one story with several little sub-stories? 

Arbugaeva (b.1985) grew up in the secluded port city Tiksi on the shore of the Laptev Sea, Russia and although now based in London, remains deeply connected to her birthplace. Her work is often located within the tradition of magical realism, and her approach combines documentary and narrative styles to create a distinctive visual iconography rooted in real experience but resonant with fable, myth and romanticism. 

Magical Realism

'Magic realism' is a style of fiction and literary genre that paints a realistic view of the modern world while also adding magical elements. For example, magical or supernatural phenomena being presented in an otherwise real-world or mundane setting. It's not in the same league as fantasy, as magic realism uses a substantial amount of realistic detail and employs magical elements to make a point about reality. Fantasy stories are usually completely detached from reality. The term 'magical realism' was first used by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925. He used the term to emphasise how magical, fantastic and strange normal objects can appear in the real world when you stop and look at them. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF MAGICAL REALISM:

-REALISTIC SETTING (A world familiar to the reader).

-MAGICAL ELEMENTS (fantastical elements that do not occur in our world but are presented as normal in the narrative).

-LIMITED INFORMATION (leave the magic in the stories unexplained).

-CRITIQUE (magical realism is often used to offer an implicit critique of society, most notably politics and the elite. Critiquing the distaste of American imperialism- oppressed countries).

-UNIQUE PLOT STRUCTURE (Does not follow a typical narrative arc: Beginning, middle and end. This makes for a more intense reading experience).

Magical Realist Authors:

HARUKI MURAKAMI- one of the most important Japanese authors of this genre.

"What is important is how things look, how they sound and how the vibration from them is felt, not things themselves". Haruki Murakami

In Murakami's writings, the world gets condensed, realities distilled and served with a dash of the uncanny. His narratives are almost always inquisitive and exploratory. His heroes set off on missions of discovery, where they end up in sometimes profoundly, fundamentally strange. He has written about phantom sheep, about spirits meeting up in the netherworld, about little people who emerge from a painting. But, beneath the evocative, often dream-like imagery, his work is often a study of missed connections, of both the comedy and tragedy triggered by our failures to understand one another.  

"Murakami's world is like a portal to an alternate, parallel universe where things have their own way of happening, where reality and unreality collide in exuberant and elegant bursts, somewhere beyond time and space, not hamstrung by worldly reason or logic. Murakami's writing, it seems, springs from a deep well within him, which he has talked about and found a way to put in some of his novels- the well as a metaphor for a dark, mysterious place that takes you away from the mundane realities and banal concerns of the world to a zone where you reflect on the bigger questions, life and death, and the purpose of existence." scroll.in article

OLGA TOKARCZUK- One of the most important Polish authors of this genre.

Funnily enough, Tokarczuk rejects the label 'Magical realism'. However, her novels (particularly 'Primeval and Other Times' and 'House of Day, House of Night') exhibit such key magical realistic characteristics, it's hard not to place them within the magically realistic realm. Presenting worlds that exist between mythical and linear times, asserting historical order through the dominance of space over time, her novels definitely transport you to unfamiliar and exciting territories.