Henrietta Williams

The why.

2012-01-23T21:02:00.002Z

'The large-format image focuses attention onto perception itself. We become aware of perceiving. By this observation of the second order, this observation of the observation, an increased, intensified, multiplied attention is created.' - Peter Weibel

Almost my favourite quote, close second to 'Leap and a bridge shall appear', which has become my 2012 mantra.

Oil City: Hoima

2012-01-09T17:30:00.003Z

Just back from a trip to Uganda where I spent a few days in the west of the country staying in a small town called Hoima, recently re-christened as 'Oil City.' The British first discovered oil at Lake Albert in the 1930s but until recently this has not been exploited. Uganda now looks set to face the challenges and benefits of being a country with black gold. Hoima is a small town at the hub of the oil exploration and is rapidly urbanising. These are the first scans from the trip...

The Olympic Village

2012-01-09T16:56:00.003Z

Some shots from my large format camera on a hazy morning in November (lots of scanning last week). Like many people I'm interested in the extremities of the Olympics; that clear division between an established area with layers of history and dirt and the shiny, clean and safe Olympic village rising up out of it. Both areas clearly delineated by a security fence.

The Big Shed build: Autumn

2012-01-09T16:05:00.003Z

Moving house

2012-01-09T16:01:00.002Z

The Corey-Wrights house was moved in a single day. Not that effortlessly unfortunately, eventually it was rolled on logs laid under the structure with a digger pushing it. Ancient Egypt style.

New roads through the forest

2012-01-09T15:52:00.005Z

November 1st: First day of the Roe Does hunting season

2011-11-01T10:30:00.001Z

Tim & his excellent dogs Twiggy and Ted.

Big Shed: test shots

2011-10-29T16:38:00.000+01:00

The Big Shed goes up...

2011-10-26T21:39:00.000+01:00

Sunday night dinner

2011-10-17T13:54:00.002+01:00

Chris shot this, then deconstructed it. We ate the bits that aren't in the photograph.

Morning walk in the forest

2011-10-12T12:24:00.001+01:00

Jilly & Bob, woodcutting team.

The annual deer cull has begun.

NASA stop frame

2011-10-12T10:33:00.002+01:00

Stop frame animation of photos taken by the Mars Rover at the end of each driving session over a 3 year period. I like the ones where you can see the tracks of the vehicle or the shadow.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JPLnews#p/u/0/Vj4e2FyNFIE

A new road through the forest

2011-10-11T15:01:00.004+01:00

Part of a series of video sketches from a residency I'm doing at Hooke Park in Dorset.

Watch the stop frame animation here: http://vimeo.com/30363138

Plasma machine cuts through steel like butter

2011-10-11T09:31:00.002+01:00

With thanks to Mark and Bob at Sheetfabs.
Watch the video here

Town transforms into a literal RING OF STEEL

2011-10-10T15:26:00.001+01:00

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v64619559z36d8KX

Bravestarr - Fort New Texas

Research provided courtesy of Michael Cummins.

Photographing the light...

2011-10-03T14:18:00.001+01:00

Friday at Westminster Cathedral.

Kite festival at Eggardon Hill Fort

2011-09-12T15:14:00.003+01:00

A seriously windy day at Eggardon Hill Fort, almost too windy for kiting.

Knotting with Dom, music with Henry and Oscar

2011-09-12T12:27:00.002+01:00

The Big Shed: the site

2011-09-02T19:22:00.000+01:00

Exhibition at the Brick Box, Brixton. Opens Thursday 25th August 6-9pm

2011-08-23T15:48:00.001+01:00

Daniela stretching

2011-08-21T23:53:00.002+01:00

I spent Saturday filming Daniela Neugebauer from Random Dance.

Residency at Hooke Park

2011-08-20T13:51:00.003+01:00

Just back from a reccie at Hooke Park in Dorset. I'm going to be starting a residency there at the end of the month and will be around for 6 weeks or so to document the Big Shed project.

Henrietta Williams & George Gingell interviewed by The Culture Show

2011-08-19T12:42:00.001+01:00

A special feature on London's Ring of Steel on The Culture Show, first shown on BBC 2 on 17th May 2011.
Watch it on Vimeo

Lecture on 'The Ring of Steel'

2011-08-09T18:56:00.003+01:00

Come along to hear us give a lecture on 'The Ring of Steel' at UCL.
http://www.autopsiesgroup.com/events.html

Portraits for the Archive Institute

2011-05-27T00:00:00.004+01:00

Shabina

Meenakshi

Jabeen

Shabnam

I'm currently working on a community arts photography project with a group from the Asian Women's Centre in Brent, the project is funded by the Archive Institute. Alongside teaching the participants photography I've also been taking their portraits.

Dancer in space

2011-05-09T16:57:00.002+01:00

Trish in the Matadero, Madrid, April 2011.

Walking through London

2011-05-02T12:27:00.001+01:00

Great slideshow of a walk through London by Daniel Raven-Ellison, watch it here. From edge to edge, photos taken every 8 steps.

'Entering the Panopticon' to feature in 'The Architecture of War' exhibition

2011-01-24T19:28:00.003Z

'The Architecture of War'

Art exhibition and discussion examining how the built environment shapes conflicts today and to what degree are the spaces we live in determined by war and violence. The cityscapes which we are so accustomed to are being continuously changed in preparation for potential attacks, impacting not only our relationships with our surroundings, but also how we interact with each other.

Featuring:

George Gingell and Henrietta Williams / Photography and interactive installation

Liana Bresler and Lejla Odobasic / Architecture Project

Brad Feuerhelm / Photography

Private view and discussion:

February 17th 2011, 6pm

the discussion on February 17th will start at 7pm

Exhibition open daily, 18.2.2011 to 24.2.2011, 3-6pm

At the Drawers Gallery, 438 Kingsland Road

This is an Open Democracy exhibition, more information can be found on our website: www.opendemocracy.net

Download the invite.

Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon (1/4)

2010-10-26T18:10:00.006+01:00

‘Entering the Panopticon: a study of the Ring of Steel’ is a project that seeks to demonstrate the pervasive nature of surveillance society in the UK. Up to 4 million CCTV cameras trace and capture the movements of people across Britain every day. Government are increasingly structuring our urban environments around the idea of the Panopticon. We now live in a society in which we are unwittingly ordered and controlled, where security and safety are paramount.

This approach to urban planning, often referred to as fortress urbanism, draws on defence initiatives from conflict zones and applies them within civilian locations. ‘The Ring of Steel’ was first created in 1993 to protect the City of London from the threat of terrorism after the IRA had identified the capitalist financial centre as a perfect target for their bombing campaign.

Yet this is not the first time the area has had to be fortified against attack. The ‘Ring of Steel’ lies alongside and intersects the ancient London Wall, first constructed by the Romans. Instead of bricks and stone, this contemporary defence system uses CCTV cameras, sentry boxes, bollards, one-way systems and flower planting. The old street patterns have been redrawn to create a new urban plan that is easy to police, instead anonymous non-places are generated that discourage citizens from lingering. People and conventional activities are removed from the streets, unwanted in a new world where surveillance is paramount.

Our project uses maps and photographs to make visible the function, nature and effect of the Ring of Steel, its role as a Panopticon, and demonstrates how it follows an ancient line of defence whilst deploying a very 21st century approach to control.

Remnants of London Wall, Barbican

Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon (2/4)

2010-10-26T18:08:00.002+01:00

Tree planting and road blockage, Mark Lane.

Sentry box and CCTV cameras for number plate recognition, Fleet Street.

Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon (3/4)

2010-10-26T18:02:00.004+01:00

Sentry box and CCTV cameras for number plate recognition, New Fetter Lane.

Bollards and privatised road, Snowden Street.

Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon (4/4)

2010-10-26T17:57:00.008+01:00

Private CCTV camera within the Ring of Steel, Spital Square.

Roman remains of the London Wall, basement of Merrill Lynch.

Kieran Long writes about 'Entering the Panopticon' for the Evening Standard

2010-10-15T20:10:00.003+01:00

So can the secret Ring of Steel save the City from terrorism?

Kieran Long for the Evening Standard, 15.10.2010

Take your A to Z and look up Vandy Street, a tiny back street at the northern edge of the city in EC2. On a map, it looks like any other road, just another of the capillaries that make up the rich plan of the City of London.

But go there, and you'll find a very different story. Its street sign is still in place but it is no longer a road. It has been transformed into a manicured lawn with a thin strip of gravel edging it - not comfortable to walk on, and certainly not possible to drive down.

At the southern end of the street is a dense series of outsized plant pots, with colourful flowers and trees. More significantly, perhaps, this former public byway is private property, managed by an anonymous security firm, which has placed helpful signs explaining what can and can't be done in that space.

Vandy Street is now part of the Ring of Steel, the 6.5 miles of bollards, police boxes, CCTV cameras and other subtle obstructions that has transformed the capital since it was conceived in 1993. It is the City of London's defence against car-borne terrorism, an unbroken security cordon that encircles London's financial heart.

The ring, which stretches from Aldgate to the Strand, and from Shoreditch to the Temple, allows police to monitor and record every car that enters the City, and provides solid barriers (such as the plant pots in Vandy Street) that prevent unauthorised entry. It is probably the most radical shift to the urban order of any part of London in decades, and continues to evolve almost unnoticed, shaping who uses the City of London, and for what.

The phenomenon has been relatively covert, that is, until documentary photographer Henrietta Williams and cartographer and trainee architect George Gingell began their project Entering the Panopticon: a study of the Ring of Steel, earlier this year. The project is now complete, and their comprehensive mapping and photographic survey of every element of the ring will be exhibited at a festival in east London beginning next Friday for three days. Their research reveals one of the most significant transformations of an urban plan anywhere in London, 17 years of alterations to the public realm that have fundamentally changed the way the City meets the rest of the city.

Williams and Gingell's work documents a landscape of explicit security measures, such as new chicanes in roads manned by armed police, security cameras and bollards, as well as more subtle segments of the ring. The pictures reveal decorative water features and planters that are in fact built solidly enough to prevent car-bomb attacks. They also show many places that were once streets, part of the public realm, that are now private property, staffed by security guards who move on homeless people, prevent photographers from taking pictures and stop kids skateboarding.

The statistic that is most shocking is that two-thirds of all the streets that used to lead into the City of London have now been closed to traffic. There are just 19 ways to drive into the City of London, each of them monitored by two CCTV cameras, one trained on the driver's face, the other recording every car's number plate. This information is kept indefinitely in a database that is accessible to any police force in the country.

Williams and Gingell taught me how to spot the cameras. They are always black poles with two cameras at different heights, plus a light at the top acting as a kind of flash. Traffic in the entire City can be controlled by just 80 or so policemen, manning these deliberate 19 pinch points. The last time this happened was in September when the Pope was in London. Each box is manned, usually, by a minimum of four policemen, and they will stop cars and question drivers as they pass through the checkpoints.

The Ring of Steel was born in 1993, after the Bishopsgate bomb of the same year and when fear of attack by the IRA was at its height. It began with what has been described as the "ring of plastic", consisting of temporary plastic bollards, manned by armed police, all very visible. This temporary ring gradually solidified into permanent installations, sometimes consisting of police boxes, always augmented by the ugly standard Corporation of London metal bollards (the black ones with the white star on the top). These bollards are standard throughout the City of London, so do not always denote the Ring of Steel, but they are used frequently at the border to prevent vehicular access.

Of course, all these measures were designed for a different character of threat than the one posed today by suicide bombers like those who carried out the 7/7 attacks. The IRA would pack vehicles with explosives, leave them unmanned and detonate them remotely, as in the case of the 1993 Bishopsgate bomb, which killed one person and caused huge material damage in the City.

The IRA was also concerned with preventing their members' capture, so the idea of photographing every face entering the City made sense. Today, the Ring of Steel is highly unlikely to prevent bomb attacks by individual pedestrians, but this has not led to any questioning of its continuing relevance.

As new buildings appear at the edges of the Ring, their architecture now takes account of its position along the perimeter of the cordon. This means that buildings tend towards very large block sizes to make an unbroken wall of buildings, so different to the fine grain of lots of smaller buildings that they often replace. More recently, Ring of Steel adjustments are carried out under cover of environmental improvements, creating a new generation of public spaces in a corporate idiom of minimalist and joyless sandwich spots for City workers that suits its security agenda.

During their research, Williams and Gingell were told by security guards to stop taking photographs at various points, but their work has ended up as an admirably comprehensive survey.

When I ask them whether they are concerned about any security implications of their work, Williams answers: "Well, one thing that our research proves is that the Ring of Steel works. It functions as a perfect, unbroken ring, and whenever there is a high security situation and the police man the sentry boxes, it becomes even more effective."

But while the security ring is unbroken and vehicular entry and exit to the City is tightly controlled, Williams and Gingell are sceptical of the effectiveness of the CCTV surveillance element of the ring as a weapon against terrorism. In addition to the argument that CCTV curtails civil liberties, it is unreliable: they highlight the death of John Charles de Menezes as a recent and tragic example of the failure of surveillance culture in London.

As the July 7 bombing inquiry began this week, Hugo Keith QC, counsel to the inquests, said it will need to look at the issues of preventability in relation to terrorist attacks. This clearly goes far beyond security infrastructure like the Ring of Steel. But in being vigilant, we must be alert to how seeing everything through the lens of security can transform London into quite a different place from the one we know and care about.

In the case of the City of London, it is altering the richness of the City, replacing multiple buildings with large, singular office blocks, and transforming streets into meaningless pedestrian spaces designed so that no one lingers there.

The next time you become dimly aware of large, solid blocks in the middle of the pavement, prettied up with some pansies, with just too little space between them to drive a car, know that they are there to stop a van with a ton of fertiliser in the back from entering the City.

The Corporation of London has created a London where paranoia is written into its footprint, and succeeded in what everyone from Wren to the Luftwaffe has more or less failed to do: changed the very plan of the ancient City.

Entering the Panopticon: a study of the Ring of Steel will be on display at This is Not a Gateway festival, Hanbury House, Hanbury Street, E1, from October 22-24. There will also be walking tours of the Ring of Steel with Henrietta Williams and George Gingell, and places on these are bookable at thisisnotagateway.net/

Here's the original link: Evening Standard Article

1869

2010-09-24T13:08:00.002+01:00

In 1869 The American Law Register predicts: 'when the art of photography is perfected, the streets and alleys of our great cities will be swept by photographic batteries, so located as to take, from many points of view at once, the likenesses of persons engaged in disturbing the peace. '

Tate Modern 2010
'Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera'

Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon

2010-08-22T18:57:00.015+01:00

'Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon’ is a psychogeographical exploration that traverses both the ancient and contemporary systems of defence around the Square Mile.

Alongside the sites of the old Roman wall that surrounded the city is a new architecture of paranoia. This is the so-called ‘Ring of Steel’, a security installation that carefully guards the City of London. First created in reaction to the Bishopsgate bombing by the IRA in 1993 this system of defense acts as a Panopticon logging and recording every vehicle entry into the City.

The ‘Ring of Steel’ uses a system of CCTV, sentry boxes and bollards to prevent access and carefully monitor the square mile. Streets, entry points and buildings have been reconfigured to create a digitally hermetically sealed security installation.

Ushering in a new phase of fortress urbanism, the ‘Ring of Steel’ was the first step in turning London into one of the world’s most monitored cities. Fortress urbanism becomes the basis for the structure of the urban environment. People and conventional activities are removed from the streets, unwanted in a new world where surveillance is paramount.

The project ‘Ring of Steel: Entering the Panopticon’ uses maps and photographs to make visible the function, nature and effect of the Ring of Steel, and to demonstrate how it follows an ancient line of defence while still deploying a very 21st century approach to control.

To download the map go to the following link:
Ring of Steel: London
This map is for viewing in Google Earth.
Download Google Earth

The project will be exhibited as part of the forthcoming festival ‘This is Not a Gateway’ in London, October 22nd-24th 2010
This is Not a Gateway

We will also be giving a guided tour of the ‘Ring of Steel’ as part of this festival. For further information please email Henrietta at info@henriettawilliams.com

This is a collaborative project, all mapping by George Gingell, all photographs by Henrietta Williams.

Commonage: Part 1

2010-08-13T11:46:00.002+01:00

Images taken as part of a commission for the Commonage exhibition in Callan, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland.

http://www.commonagecallan.com/

COMMONAGE
An exploration of community in contemporary rural Ireland.

Away from the bustling cities are the small towns that planners, architects and politicians often forget. These small towns are neither the hubs of the global financial industry nor are they the high-tech centres of their countries. They are towns where ordinary residents experience the vagaries of the global economy and the impacts of global climate changes. But they are also towns from which we can learn how to develop a sustainable future....
‘Small town sustainability’, Heike Mayer and Paul L. Knox, Birkhauser (2009)

COMMONAGE invites artists and architects to undertake a radical exploration of the built environment of Callan, a town that is unique yet familiar and whose stage has become a fertile ground for contemplation and research. Comprising both newly commissioned work (Rhona Byrne, Gerry Cahill, Lisa Cassidy, Culturstruction, The Good Hatchery, HURL, Henrietta Williams) and existing work (Gabriella Kiss, Dominic Lavelle, Katie Mangan, School of Architecture U.C.D.) this architectural exploration is not so much about buildings but about the spaces we share. COMMONAGE engages with the energies, histories and present day situations of the overlooked core of the town, some of it actively threatened by decay and commercial unsustainability.

Looking at 'community' becomes particularly pertinent in the context of Callan town, with it's Augustinian history and life-sharing communities as well as one of the last independent agricultural co-operatives active in South Leinster. COMMONAGE highlights this context by working with areas of the town which are civic or collectively owned and operated. These places include the former home of the Callan Co-op, the Augustinian lands and the riverbank. This research work marks the start of a much longer engagement with the built environment of Callan. The programme presents a complex and diverse set of practices, intended to encourage possibility and to provide a resource for future development to be measured in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. Often the smallest of gestures endure. In curating this programme we were struck by our encounters with a town rich with history, much of it overlooked, yet a place actively looking to the future with a sense of ambition and self- determination.

Jo Anne Butler, Tara Kennedy, Rosie Lynch

Commonage: Part 2

2010-08-13T11:44:00.001+01:00

Commonage: Part 3

2010-08-13T11:43:00.002+01:00

HOLDING THE LINE

2010-06-29T10:58:00.001+01:00

Since the end of the Ice Age, the East Coast has been slowly sinking and the soft sandy cliffs eroding. Historically towns and villages have always been lost to the sea. At one time Dunwich was the fourth largest settlement in England, now only a single ruin from the medieval town remains, the rest lies beneath the ocean.

But during the twentieth century flood defences were constructed along 24,000 miles of England and Wales. The sea would be tamed and the coast lined with concrete walls. The policy was to ‘hold the line’ and counteract the sublime force of the ocean with complex hard defences of groynes, rock armour, concrete studs, curved walls and stones lashed in wire. Now the beaches look like battlegrounds, scarred and some already with the detritus of broken defences.

Climate change is driving a continuing need for flood defences, the sea may rise by as much as 2 metres by 2100. Yet government policy is now shifting from holding the line to the idea of a ‘managed retreat’. Large towns will remain protected, but smaller villages will be left to crumble slowly away. Areas of open farmland, previously reclaimed from the sea, are being returned to their natural state. The new mud flats and salt marshes break the power of incoming tides, an alternative to a coastline encased behind a skin of concrete.

HOLDING THE LINE: Part 1

2010-06-19T00:34:00.005+01:00

Site of managed retreat, Tollesbury, Essex.

Marram grass as sea defence, Jaywick, Essex.

Kiaora house, Sea Palling, dug into the dunes behind the sea wall.

Sea wall, Jaywick, Essex.

HOLDING THE LINE: Part 2

2010-06-19T00:29:00.003+01:00

Jaywick sea wall, Essex.

Groynes at Canvey Island, Essex.

Beach at Canvey Island, Essex.

Benacre Wood, Suffolk.

HOLDING THE LINE: Part 3

2010-06-19T00:23:00.002+01:00

Happisburgh sea defences, Norfolk.

Tollesbury salt marshes, area of managed retreat.

Happisburgh, cliff edge.

Dunwich, the ruins of the medieval city lie under water.

Holding the Line

2010-05-17T16:29:00.003+01:00

Seawall, Jaywick.

New work for the Satellite Art Biennale in Whitstable.

19-27th June 2010

Open daily: 12 noon - 8pm weekends, 4pm - 8pm weekdays

Location:

30 Tankerton West
Tankerton
Whitstable
CT5 2JJ

New portrait commission

2010-05-17T16:27:00.002+01:00

Carson and Crushell architects

Stills from 'All the Way from SE10': Part 1

2010-04-07T23:43:00.002+01:00

Stills from 'All the Way from SE10': Part 2

2010-04-07T23:41:00.001+01:00

Buckminster Fuller

2010-01-26T18:16:00.000Z

'Today, the world is too dangerous for anything less than utopia.' Richard Buckminster Füller

Glidecams rule

2010-01-21T19:55:00.002Z

http://vimeo.com/8272358

The Island of Utopia

2010-01-11T17:42:00.001Z

Ambrosius Holbein, engraving for a 1518 edition of Thomas More's Utopia.

Utopia:

2010-01-11T17:40:00.001Z

utopia (‘good place’, or ‘no place’) a term used since Plato to describe an ideal – and therefore unattainable – community. Utopianism is the nearest thing we have to a cross-disciplinary tradition of thought about the problem of dwelling. The trouble is that it’s not a realistic approach, because it aims at perfection.

Carolyn Steel

http://www.hungrycitybook.co.uk

Think outside the box...

2010-01-11T15:30:00.001Z

The Third & The Seventh

by Alex Roman

http://vimeo.com/7809605

Highway Number 1

2010-01-07T17:00:00.000Z

Edward Burtynsky, Highway #1, Intersection 105 & 110, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2003. Chromogenic color print. Photograph © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York; and Adamson Gallery, Washington, DC.

Ballardian influences in Burtynsky's photography

2010-01-07T16:57:00.002Z

The chief landscape tradition Burtynsky assays is that of the sublime. Edmund Burke, in his treatise A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), described the sublime as an evocation of anxiety in the face of nature, an exhilarating but fraught recognition of its illimitable power over humankind. When confronted by the sublime in the natural world—a raging flood, a hurricane, a precipitous cliff—man is overcome by an ecstasy of terror; thus awakening to the limits of his own dominion.

Many artists (most famously Caspar David Friedrich) have tried to represent sublime experience in the natural world. But Burtynsky draws his terrifying sublime from the world of order rather than the forces of the wild. The shock of his images derives from unimaginable scale, from crushing power; but not from God’s Nature. Rather: from the organization of resources for profit, from the plumbing of the earth to extract value.

Observing the machine, the electric light, the combustion engine, the dammed river, factory and city, airplane and car, we can imagine that man’s forward motion, from the Industrial Age on, has occasioned a new variation of the sublime. In the rise of modern technology, with its intimations of human mastery over time and space, the natural world has been rendered and contained; its force, dispersed; and our fear of God, tempered. The power of the environmental cosmos surrenders to the monstrous vacuity of science, mechanization, and progress. If, pace Nietzsche, God is dead; then it is man we must fear—and his creations.

In his book The Machine in the Garden (1964), historian Leo Marx describes 19th-century reaction to that era’s emerging marvels of industry and engineering: “The awe and reverence once reserved for the Deity and later bestowed upon the visible landscape is directed toward technology, or rather the technological conquest of matter.” The rise of the machine— and its subjugation of our surrounding environment—has engendered a new “technological sublime.”

This modern form of sublimity is more complex than mere technophobia. It acknowledges our dependence on automation, its betterments and pleasures; our astonishment at its extremes; and finally, our creeping terror at its consequentiality. We see no simplistic villainy in Burtynsky’s pictures—no industrial Golem, no homicidal Frankenstein. Rather, we see the ordering force of man, and the chilling, corrosive, penultimate threat that lies at the black heart of our rationalism.

Paul Roth
Senior Curator, Photography and Media Arts
© 2010, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Full article at: http://www.ballardian.com/edward-burtynsky-oil-a-ballardian-interpretation

CPRE - Lambourne End Outdoor Centre, part 1:

2009-12-09T17:16:00.003Z

CPRE - Lambourne End Outdoor Centre, part 2:

2009-12-09T17:14:00.002Z

CPRE - Brockley Hill

2009-12-09T17:12:00.002Z

Horses grazing with the M1 in the distance.

CPRE - Fly tipping

2009-12-09T17:11:00.003Z

CPRE - Stanmore Common

2009-12-09T17:10:00.003Z

I dream of England... part 1

2009-12-08T23:14:00.003Z

I dream of England... part 2

2009-12-08T23:12:00.001Z

Grenoble Road

2009-11-22T22:04:00.002Z

Proposed site of development next to Grenoble Road, in part of the Oxford greenbelt.

Oxford Greenbelt

2009-11-22T21:59:00.000Z

Oxford Greenbelt cont...

2009-11-22T21:56:00.000Z

Coming and going

2009-11-12T21:04:00.000Z

23 Temple Gardens

2009-11-12T21:02:00.002Z

Athlone Institute of Technology: Part 1

2009-11-12T20:53:00.002Z

Athlone Institute of Technology: Part 2

2009-11-12T20:51:00.002Z

Suffolk storm

2009-07-04T13:09:00.003+01:00

Million Women Rise

2009-03-10T14:32:00.004Z

A selection of portraits from the Million Women Rise march on Saturday 7th March.

Fatina

Val

Samantha

Fadime

Emma

Crafted landscapes

2009-03-06T13:14:00.002Z

Football pitch, Short Lane.

Staines North Reservoir

Supplies water to West London, also a bird sanctuary.

Peter Mihalik, birdwatcher.

At the edge: Part 2

2009-02-18T11:27:00.003Z

Mayfield Farm, Heathrow conservation site.

At the edge: Part 1

2009-02-18T11:17:00.003Z

People walk their dogs at this point; an intersection of pretend countryside one field deep that separates suburbia from the beginning of Heathrow.

Snow battles at midnight

2009-02-03T00:53:00.003Z

Heathrow: the meeting of place and non-place

2009-02-03T00:50:00.002Z

I'm working with my friend Nico on a new project looking at Heathrow airport. This has sprung out of a long lasting fascination with airports and an interest in the plans for the contested third runway. We are shooting the project on large format and keeping a digital sketchbook as we go along.

Major Project: 'In Transition'

2008-11-06T23:44:00.005Z

In Northern Ireland the term 'interface' is defined as: 'the boundary between Catholic (Nationalist) and Protestant (Unionist) areas, especially where two highly segregated areas are situated close to each other, are know as interface areas. In many such areas of Belfast the interface is marked by a physical barrier known as a "peaceline".' - http://cain.ulst.ac.uk

The photographs in this project consider the regeneration process of contested land spaces in interface areas. I have been particularly interested in how certain sites that were previously rooted in the collective consciousness of the conflict are now being reshaped by the Belfast Regeneration Office. These are former battlegrounds, now slowly morphing into generic business parks, loft apartments, car parks, even the Crumlin Road Courthouse is planned to be turned into a luxury hotel. The aim is to neutralise these very territorialised spaces. Despite a ten-year peace process, the walls in West Belfast were built higher this summer and at requests from both communities not a single wall is planned to be dismantled. Violence at interfaces in Belfast is up and clear remnants of the conflict still remain. Yet optimistic town planners are busy remapping streets and forcing Belfast into a 21st century ideal. This is a complex task and still very much a work in progress.

This blog desaturates my images, double click on a photograph to see it in full technicolour.

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The circus comes to town

2008-09-25T12:57:00.002+01:00

The Circus Sydney have just set up camp on one of the wastelands that lie next to the Peace Wall on the Loyalist/Unionist side. On the Eleventh night there was a large bonfire here bedecked with Irish flags which were quickly consumed in flames to loud cheers. The circus people are not too concerned about the location of their camp, their only worries are for the safety of the camp, that enough people will come to the circus and that there won't be any fights during the show. Last night was the opening night and a full house. Members from both communities attended.

Context for the work

2008-09-22T12:18:00.003+01:00

I'm trying to figure out a way of including the historical context of the locations that I have been photographing into my project. I wanted the photographs to have this kind of blankness, a disconnection from the history of the place. But alongside this there needs to be some other element that pulls it all together, so there is this tension between the blandness of the business parks and the violent history of the locations. I think this could be done in a number of ways:

1. Sound

I went to see a really great exhibition in Belfast on Friday and saw a video piece called 'Would you die for Ireland?' by the artist John Byrne. I've seen it before but this time I found it more thought provoking. The premise of the film is John Byrne travelling all over Ireland asking people the single question 'Would you die for Ireland?' He is careful to never follow up on the question and just lets people talk themselves. I found it so interesting because by repeatedly sticking to the same format of one question he shows the differences that lie between people. I would like to do something similar, think of a question about the business parks and go around to all the people that I have met asking that one question. Hopefully there would be an interesting difference in the responses between community workers, residents, employees, company directors and the Belfast regeneration office. At the moment I don't know what that question might be.

2. Existing archive material: Lost Lives

While I've been here I've done quite a bit of research, mainly because the libraries are excellent and I find that process really enjoyable. There's a book called 'Lost Lives' that I found particularly moving, it's basically a very well researched list of every single person that died during the conflict in Northern Ireland. The list talks about each person as an individual, not just a name, but actually talks about each person's life. A high proportion of the people in this book would have died at the locations that I've been photographing. I can't decide if this should be marked in some way, or if this could be a bit trite and could perhaps be understood in a more subtle fashion.

3. Existing archive material: Press clippings

One of the libraries that I have been using, the Linen Hall, has a Northern Irish political library. This is the most amazing resource as they have gathered a huge quantity of ephemera, press clippings, pamphlets, videos, and books. Of particular interest to me are the boxes of press clippings on interfaces which literally chart the development of the so-called 'Peace Walls'. I was thinking that it might be interest to photograph all these clipping digitally and to find some way of presenting them so that they are accessible.

So these are the ideas that I'm trying to thrash out at the moment. However, I want to get the photographs in the bag first, so I'm spending my last week focusing on that and will return for a week in November to do the historical context bit.

Into the West

2008-09-21T23:53:00.004+01:00

Some shots from Cork from a trip I took to see an old friend a month ago. We parked my van by the water for the night and cooked our dinner on an open fire. The rain lulled us to sleep drumming on the roof of the van and in the morning we woke ourselves up by jumping into the water. I've just come back from another weekend in the West, Donegal this time. Asian Dub Foundation were playing in a field by the sea and we finished up the night in a country pub run by two sisters in their seventies.

First scans

2008-09-17T23:08:00.015+01:00

I went back to London last week to process and scan my first batch of images. Now I'm back in Belfast filling in the gaps and checking the history of the particular locations. 10 days left, and then back to London to try and make sense of it all. It's a bit of a mixed bag, today I photographed an old mill and then went to a funeral home to take photos of a 1970s morgue. There will be a lot of editing to do I think. I don't know why but the photographs all de-saturate on my blog, click on each shot to see it in full techni-colour.

Wastelands

2008-09-17T23:08:00.011+01:00

Entire housing estates have been abandoned at the points where two communities meet. Businesses are boarded up, the owners relocating to a safer location. The bulldozers move in leaving traces of a recent history; abandoned possessions, tiled floors and scraps of wallpaper left on exposed walls. The land lies in wait for town planners to decide what should be created in its place.

The Hinterland

2008-09-17T23:08:00.007+01:00

Alongside the interfaces, between communities lies an un-used no-mans land. Roads lead nowhere, gates are welded shut, car parks lie empty. Yet the Sunday car boot sale thrives, demonstrating that these areas are not dead, just resting.

The creation of neutral space

2008-09-17T23:08:00.003+01:00

Out of the barren wastelands neutral spaces are created; supermarkets, business parks, and yuppie flats.

Shooting list

2008-08-22T17:24:00.004+01:00

White spaces

2008-08-20T22:36:00.002+01:00

Divisions > Derelict houses > Wasteland >

Regeneration > Neutral Space = Economic Buffer Zone

Holmes Cash and Carry, Hillview Enterprise Park off Crumlin Road, Belfast

2008-08-19T23:36:00.007+01:00

Holmes Cash and Carry lies on part of the Hillview Enterprise Park. It is one of the only surviving businesses on a site that was promised to bring industry, services and jobs to the Crumlin Road interface area. The ruins of an old mill lie in the grounds covered in ivy, a memory of the industries that kept Belfast thriving until the mid-twentieth century. Holmes has been open for thirty years and remained untouched during the conflict. I'm going back tomorrow with the Hassleblad and a sound recorder to find out more.

Andor Technology, Springvale Business Park off the Springfield Road, Belfast.

2008-08-19T13:47:00.006+01:00

This morning I was shown around the Andor Technology plant. Andor Technology makes very high end cameras for use in scientific laboratories and space crafts. The factory is situated in a neutral space on an interface area between a Loyalist and a Nationalist community. I'm going back next week with my Hassleblad to do the job properly. I love the bland language of the building, in trying to create a space that is neutral the space has really become for no one at all. Shane in marketing showed me around and said something very interesting when talking about Northern Ireland, "it's a pretense of normality", I think this idea will prove to be key to my project. Obviously second time round I won't be parking my car in any of the shots.

A wall to separate the dead

2008-08-12T10:17:00.003+01:00

During the late 19th century an underground wall was built in the Belfast City Cemetery. The wall separates the Protestant dead (on the left) from the Catholic dead. Later, separate cemeteries were used.

Interfaces

2008-08-12T10:09:00.003+01:00

There are around 13 miles of walls in Belfast built along interfaces where one community borders another. First constructed in the 1970s the walls continue to be raised higher every year. These structures are sometimes bordered by neutral spaces on either side which helps to neutralise fear. However, sometimes the communities back right up against each other resulting in areas that remain far from the post-conflict idea of Belfast that is dreamt of by politicians and city planners alike.

Wastelands

2008-08-12T10:01:00.005+01:00

Large tracts of open land lie purposefully un-used beside the towering interfaces.

Invisible walls

2008-08-12T09:57:00.003+01:00

There are invisible walls in Belfast as well. Business parks, supermarkets, and old people's homes are used as barriers or neutral spaces between communities. These areas are presented as utopian, a shared future where members of either community can feel at ease.

Art can be fun too

2008-08-05T22:29:00.001+01:00

I haven't seen this in ages but found it on youtube today. It's by artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Like all good art it was eventually ripped off for an advert.

YouTube - Amazing Chain Reaction - The Way Things Go

A brief trip home

2008-08-02T14:33:00.000+01:00

Marching season:

2008-07-30T12:31:00.004+01:00

The Orangemen march throughout Northern Ireland on various dates from Easter through to the end of the summer. The largest and most significant of these marches is on the twelfth of July in commemoration of the Protestant King William of Orange beating the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Tensions run high during marching season as some routes are contested by Catholic residents, Loyalist areas are marked by union jacks, the St George's cross and curb stones painted in red, white and blue. At midnight on the Eleventh night large bonfires are lit and bandsmen parade through the streets playing flutes and drums.

Marching season...

2008-07-30T12:29:00.004+01:00

Major project: a return to Northern Ireland

2008-06-03T21:35:00.005+01:00

I've been looking at a lot of post-conflict photographers; Simon Norfolk, Paul Seawright, Paul Graham, Alfredo Jarr, David Farrell and Gillian Edelstein. I think this is what I'm really interested in, the idea of what happens after a war, rather than the blood, sweat and gore of soldiers. Many of these photographers/artists look at the immediate aftermath, often focusing on destroyed landscapes as a way of describing what has happened to these countries.

I think I would like to look a step beyond this immediate aftermath, at how a country can begin to heal itself after a conflict. This is perhaps due to a long running fascination with Northern Ireland, a place that I never visited until after the Troubles were over. When Southern Irish friends talk to me about not liking Belfast, about feeling uneasy in the North, that's something I can't really understand because to me Northern Ireland and Belfast seem to be very optimistic places. For a while I have wanted to make some work about this sense of recovery, because it really is quite remarkable that after 35 years of killing and mistrust that the situation has finally moved on.

Two years ago I went to a seminar on 'Culture and Conflict' held on the Shankhill Road. We were taken in groups on tours of the local area. My group was shown around by a man who had been the former leader of the UDA, a Loyalist paramilitary group. He had spent 12 years in the Maze prison and had a strong sense of self awareness about how he had been as a person, and how he had changed to become someone very different, someone who is now committed to the peace process. As he showed us around his local area he explained that he had become involved in community work with a man who had previously been an IRA commander, the two men now work together across the interfaces to dissolve tension in their communities, particularly amongst young men who respect these guys because of their former roles.

Really this idea is just starting to take shape and I need to get over to Belfast and Derry/Londonderry. I know that there are a number of charities working with former paramilitaries in the community and I'm hoping to meet with them, I also have a couple of personal contacts who I met last year. At the moment I still feel unclear about how I want to photograph this project. My approach is generally pretty rooted in fine art practice so I will probably come at this sideways. Ideally I would love to find two people that might be interested in getting heavily involved and would allow me to delve into their personal histories. There is definetely an aspect of past and present that needs to be considered, perhaps using different formats.

I'm also very keen to involve a strong element of sound in the project, particularly drumming which is important to both the Loyalist and the Nationalist communities. There is an interesting group called Different Drums of Ireland who are using both the bodhran and the lambeg drums in their band. I would like to talk to the group about the possibility of doing a collaborative project whereby the photographs might be intertwined with some sort of specially created audio piece.

In my head the idea is moving along at speed, but really I need to start getting other parties on board very quickly.

Finally the project starts to move along

2008-05-28T00:52:00.005+01:00

After four days sitting in Money Remittance Worldwide Ltd I have 37 recorded conversations and seven appointments to take photographs of some of the people who made those conversations. Finally I can start taking photographs. My first assignment is to photograph Jairo Diaz at the Columbia versus Ireland football match on Thursday night.

I think it was very good for me having to sit at a desk for eight hours a day. I remembered that a lot of research can come out of enforced boredom. Topics covered in depth when the shop was quiet this afternoon include; Walthamstow Dogs stadium (shortly to close down), London's lidos, and prayer rooms in airports. It turns out that the prayer rooms are the most interesting.