Interpretation Film for Seaside: Photographed

The interpretation film for Seaside: Photographed exhibition which I co-curated with Val Williams at Turner Contemporary.

Exhibition Dates: 25 May 2019 - 8 Sept 2019 at Turner Contemporary before heading off on tour throughout 2020.

The film features both Grace Lau and Hannah Blackmore whose work is included in the exhibition, along with Jo Murray’s family archive taken by her grandfather Pat Gwynne.

CCCU and SEAS Photography & Partnerships with Turner Contemporary

In this short 2019 CCCU film, SEAS Photography Director Dr Karen Shepherdson discusses various collaborations and partnerships with the Turner Contemporary Gallery.

Seaside: Photographed at Turner Contemporary

With a week to go the posters for this exhibition, curated by myself and Val Williams have arrived and beginning to appear in various locations. Image one is from Vanley Burke’s beautiful Day Out series and Image two Raymond Conrad Lawson’s family at Whitstable beach. The exhibition runs at Turner Contemporary from May 25th 2019 - September 8th 2019. Much of 2020 will see this exhibition on national tour.

Seaside Photographed - Ready for Pre-Order!

Seaside Photographed co-authored with Val Williams is now ready for pre-order. Turner Contemporary are doing a great early-bird offer. Buy here.

Pre-ordered books will be shipped to coincide with the opening of Seaside Photographed at Turner Contemporary on 24th May 2019. This major exhibition will examine the relationship between photographers, photography and the British seaside from the 1850s to the present.

Published by Thames & Hudson | Hardback | 224 pages | ISBN 0500022062

Financial Times Weekend Magazine- Seaside Focus: DIDN'T WE HAVE A LOVELY TIME

A fantastic six-page spread in the FT Weekend Magazine, April 20/21 2019 featuring the ideas underpinning the forthcoming Seaside Photographed exhibition at Turner Contemporary (opens to the public May 25th 2019) and curated by myself and Val Williams.

Arcade Tales: The George Wilson Collection

Arcade Tales: The George Wilson Collection

March - May 2019

As Director of SEAS Photography I had the delight of curating Arcade Tales: The George Wilson Collection in the Daphne Oram Building for the Creative Arts at CCCU. The exhibition include photographs from George Wilson (housed at SEAS Photography) along with a bespoke Margate arcade game (made by Dr Alan Meades and Dr Jo Baxter-Webb) and a documentary film on George Wilson by alumni Shaun Vincent. I thank Dr Alan Meades for the exhibition’s introduction below:

George Wilson Arcade images above.

Arcade Tales: The George Wilson Collection Preview below.

INTRODUCTION: Most of us would recognise the amusement arcade as an essential part of the British seaside holiday experience, yet despite their cultural resonance they remain an under-researched and under-documented subject. We might associate the amusement arcade with the arrival of videogames in the 1970s, but its roots are far deeper, and far more intertwined with a history of working-class British play and entertainment. The first amusement arcades, sometimes called ‘gaff shops’ or ‘playlands’, originated in major British cities in the early 1900s. They were a product of the combination of widespread interest in automated coin-operated technology, public desire for inexpensive entertainment, and peculiarities of British gambling law that made arcades sites for illicit low-stakes public gambling. Early arcades were often the wintering premises of Travelling Showmen, who offered public access to entertainments and sideshows while they repaired rides and prepared for the following season of itinerant fairs. This pattern of arcades during inclement seasons and travelling fairs (containing arcade machines) continued until the post-war years when the seaside arcade became the dominant model. By the 1960s the rise of seaside tourism, the resultant decline of the itinerant fair, and liberalisation of gambling laws in the UK, meant that many Travelling Showmen purchased seafront plots and become full-time arcade operators. From this point the arcade became an essential part of the British seaside experience, while retaining its popular associations with illicit play, gambling, and carefree holiday license. 

It is in part due to these associations with illicit fun, its framing as low-culture, and the periodic calls for greater regulation, or indeed prohibition of arcades from the seaside, that the amusement arcade remains rarely photographed or theorised. Seaside councils often attempted to block the development and expansion of arcades, citing the threat of moral decline, and arcade operators became vigilant to people photographing activity within their spaces. Of course, many holiday snaps and amusement trade photographs, will have been taken within amusement arcades, but there are very few that exist within the public domain, or that document activity within the arcades, and the British arcade remains a rather mysterious place. 

 In 1981 and 1982 George Wilson, a graduate of David Hurn’s School of Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales, Newport, spent two seasons as a bingo caller in Cain’s Amusements on the seafront in Herne Bay, Kent. As a trusted member of the arcade-staff and a talented photographer, Wilson was able to take the photographs that many were not able to. He documented the comings and goings at this typical British arcade and captures many of the features that are distinct to the British amusement arcade: the arcade as an intergenerational space; the presence of fruit-machines, bingo, penny-pushers, pool, and videogames; the arcade as social space.

“I was supposed to be working, [not] taking photographs,” says Wilson, whose collection was obtained in 2017 by Canterbury Christ Church University’s South East Archive of Seaside Photography. “So I used to take my camera down sneakily, and take a few… I wasn’t interested in the machines, it’s always about the people.”

 The images offer an insight into the communities that formed in the arcades, and how important these places were to them, not to mention some complex social machinations. People coming from different legal and cultural backgrounds often find the subjects of gambling and youth profoundly interesting within the photographs. Gambling laws and attitudes towards low-stakes gambling, such as seen with coin-pushers, and fruit-machines - both of which are normal and legal within a British arcade context, are far more liberal in the UK than almost any other territory. Indeed, the amusement arcade’s ecosystem is one that balances low-stakes gambling, amusements, and entertainments in a way seen almost nowhere else. 

 Most importantly with Wilson’s work, however, is the way that is documents and brings to life a community and set of practices that have remained up until this point largely invisible. As Wilson states, “Photography does one thing really well – record and event”. Wilson’s photographs remain the only known body of documentary photographs from British amusement arcades, and as a result his work connects well with Ira Nowinski’s Bay Area Arcades archive held at Stanford University which offers a distinctly American perspective on a similar subject.

These photographs offer a unique perspective on British seaside culture and play, as Wilson explains, “I think it would be impossible [to make the work] now because they’d throw you out. But they couldn’t throw me out ‘cos I used to work there.”

The Remembered Dead - Exhibition

The Remembered Dead exhibition took place at Canterbury Christ Church University’s, Powell Lower Foyer Gallery and included a number of artists and objects considering memorialisation, repair and reparation. Artists contributing to the exhibition included:

Graham Goldwater: A Model War

The narrative for Goldwater’s piece is constructed through the battered remnants of toy soldiers and the documentation of World War I reconstructive facial surgery. The series explores themes of war, conflict and memory. Goldwater’s collection of battered and timeworn lead toy soldiers are intimately
documented with large-scale photographs and positioned alongside photographs of drawings by Herbert Cole, (an artist who worked with the surgeon Harold Gillies, documenting facial injuries and their subsequent surgical reconstruction).
Collectively, these images symbolize the military body as it is scarred
and incised by the violence of conflict.

Toy soldiers have been a firm favourite with children for who knows how long, but the 20th century saw the coming of the lead soldier. Cheaper means of mass production and the advent of The Great War made them ever more popular. Different armies’ colours, ranks, jobs and services allowed for a proliferation of models to be collected and played with. For every one bought and carefully stored away, thousands were put into pockets and school satchels and taken around to be fought with, fought over, swopped, held to ransom, burned, stood up, knocked down, dropped from great heights, plunged into water and generally to be as tested as their poor real life counterparts. As such, these models began to pick up all the signs of injury and disfigurement that the real life combatants sustained.

 These modest models were mass-produced but then individually painted. So, like an army, they are comprised of a repetitive cast die but all in their own way individual, with no two exactly alike. 

 (A Model War was originally a UAL Photography and the Archive Research Centre exhibition, curated by Wendy Short and Val Williams as a part of Moose on the Loose 2013, and its production supported by London College of Communication.)

Alongside Goldwater’s A Model War a vitrine held the notes from surgeon Sir Harold Gilles.

Gilles Notes

The lists given in Gillies notes attest to the ghastly injuries that could be sustained in the Great War, in amongst the many references to GSW (gun shot wound) are bullet wound lower jaw, shell wound jaw, shrapnel wound face, enucleated eye, loss nasal tip, loss upper third nose, loss of lower jaw, gsw face and mandible maxilla, gsw loss of right eye and upper and lower jaw, plus sadly, several references to ‘mule kick’. A terrible irony that such a disastrous wound, sustained in the middle of the industrially fought Great War, should come from a farmyard animal.

Sir Harold Gillies was one of the pioneering founders of modern plastic surgery. Born in 1882 he was exposed to early attempts at skin grafts in Paris. On his return to London he convinced the Army’s chief surgeon that these new techniques would be not only vital in saving the lives of injured soldiers but also allow them to have some kind of a normal life when returned to civilian duty. In 1917 The Queens Hospital opened in Sidcup where over 11,000 operations took place on over 5,000 men.

Herbert Coles and Henry Tonks were employed by the unit to paint detailed watercolours of the injuries sustained by the men. These are now housed in the library of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The Herbert Coles portraits are used with the kind permission of the Archives of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Model and Soldier Key

 Manoil 16. A prone machine gunner.

Pte P. Green. 471928. Rfn. Londons 2/12.

GSW Face. 14-06-17

Manoil 43. Kneeling sniper.

Pte W. Gordon. 32515. Rfn. NZRB.

Face. (no date of injury)

Manoil 9. An Officer.

Pte David. Howard. 266228. East Surreys 8th.

GSW Jaw, mouth and mandible. 01-02-18

 Manoil 75. Anti-aircraft searchlight being operated by a soldier.

Pte A. Greive. 4170. Black Watch 8th.

GSW Mouth and nose. 14-10-18

Manoil 93. Soldier in a gasmask carrying a riffle.

Pte J. Eggington. 241460. South Staffs 2/6th.

GSW Nose and right eye. 11-04-17

 Manoil 62. Soldier in bayonet charge.

Pte F. Smith. 241160. Norfolks

GSW Face. 02-11-17

 Manoil 73. Anti Aircraft Gunner

Pte A. Godfrey. NZ X1 Taranaki WG

Face/Eye (no date of injury)

 Manoil 112. An Aviator holding a bomb.

Pte L. Tringham. 235074. Middlesex 12th.

GSW Face, nose and right eye. 08-08-17

Karen Shepherdson

Aftermath

 Aftermath was supported by Arts Council England and reappropriates the found images of Ernst Friedrich’s 1924 Krieg dem Kriege. It examines ‘ruination’ relating to the human form, a form all too vulnerable to mechanical warfare. Using the esoteric photographic technique of emulsion lifting, whereby the photographic emulsion - similar to that of a fine layer of skin - is lifted away, each image forces us to consider the fragility of the face and the utter devastation at its loss. A characteristic of emulsion lifts are tears and creases which subsequently require slow, gentle teasing and stroking out by hand using soft natural bristle brushes. This act of stroking and easing the face back into shape is of course in sharp distinction to the moment of facial destruction. 

This series was shown alongside lead ‘toys’ of WWI Model Medics & Wounded Serviceman (examples from Germany, UK, France and  Belgium), WWI Model Explosions (Lineol, German)

Poignant comparisons could also be made between these ‘toys’ and Fergus Mackain’s iluustraions: Sketches of Tommy’s Life – Up the Line No 1-10 (Set 3, 1917)

The Remembered Dead - Book Launch & Symposium

2018 saw the extraordinary The Remembered Dead by Sally Minogue and Andrew Palmer published by Cambridge University Press. In a period where so much has been published about WWI, this intensely researched book offers new explorations of the poets of that traumatic time and also those poets who would reflect back to that period in their writing. Minogue and Palmer through their collaboration consider the complexity of "how to remember, and commemorate, those killed in conflict". 

In late September 2018 a book launch and symposium took place at Canterbury Christ Church University. Here, alongside Sally, Andrew and Turner shortlisted artist Simon Patterson, I presented a paper which examined the concepts of memorialisation, repair and reparation in the aftermath of WWI.

I was honoured to have an image (made as part of my 2014 project on WWI memorialisation and the face) selected for this important publication's cover. The image Broken Faces II is a Polaroid lift and a detail from Broadstairs war memorial.

Contributing to a new publication.

I was delighted to have contributed a chapter to Coastal Cultures of the Long Nineteenth Century. It was edited by the splendid Ingleby and Kerr and published by Edinburgh University Press.

My chapter reconsiders the early tin/ambrotype photographers trading on the foreshore from 1850. The book has already had some splendid reviews and whilst eye-wateringly expensive should be in good libraries very soon.

BBC: A Passage to Britain

With my Director of SEAS Photography hat on, I contributed research and images to the BBC's recent documentary series 'A Passage to Britain'. In the episode The Asturias (tx 21st August 2018), Dr Yasmin Khan unearths stories of migrants travelling from Bombay following independence and Partition. Anne Tilley's Anglo-Indian family is focused on and how her father, the very talented Indian Times photographer Bert Scott, became a Sunbeam seaside photographer  at Walpole Bay.

Anne with her son returned to Cliftonville and in the Archive we found the photograph above with who we think is Bert at work, photographing a father and child at the waters' edge. (Circled above and detailed below.) 

Anne was so moved and it reminds us how potent and tantalising seaside photography can prove.

A Passage to Britain is a wonderful series, beautifully presented by Khan and available on BBC iPlayer until mid September 2018.

The Remembered Dead: Poetry, Memory and the First World War

This year saw the extraordinary The Remembered Dead by Sally Minogue and Andrew Palmer published by Cambridge University Press. In a period where so much has been published about WWI, this intensely researched book offers new explorations of the poets of that traumatic time and also those poets who would reflect back to that period in their writing. Minogue and Palmer through their collaboration consider the complexity of "how to remember, and commemorate, those killed in conflict". 

I was honoured to have an image made as part of my 2014 project on WWI memorialisation and the face, selected for this important publication's cover. The image Broken Faces II is a Polaroid lift and a detail from Broadstairs war memorial.

The book is now available from CUP or any good bookshop. 

FORTHCOMING EVENT: Between the Tides: Walpole Bay Tidal Pool at 80

OCTOBER 19th at 6.15, CCCU's Broadstairs Campus

To book event click: HERE

Between the Tides: Walpole Bay Tidal Pool at 80 provides a free evening of gathering, exhibition, film screenings and presentations. 

It might seem strange to celebrate a Pool’s anniversary – but throughout the its 80th year filmmakers and photographers have been engaging with the communities who use this extraordinary and extraordinarily democratic place and space and this free event provides an opportunity to gather and share the work produced with the maker’s reflections. 

This event is being hosted by CCCU’s Centre for Research on Communities & Cultures and is supported by the Walpole Bay Swimmers; A Better Cliftonville and Arts Council England.

Walpole Bay Tidal Pool @ 80

In late June many gathered at the Grade II listed Walpole Bay tidal pool, Cliftonville, nr Margate in celebration of its 80th anniversary. This place provides a vital free space in which to play, swim, fish and come together. On arrival the tide was high and people unfamiliar with Cliftonville were looking bewildered, shyly asking 'where is the pool'? It necessitates waiting, no instant gratification here, but then as the tide slowly turns, this beautiful vast tidal pool quietly reveals itself. 

lollipop pants

tiny tattoo

With my colleague Rob Ball, we photographed a number of the swimmers, ably assisted by Jason Pay and Shaun Vincent. We were supported through CCCU's Centre for Research on Communities & Cultures. In October there will be a further event at CCCU, Broadstairs with an exhibition, presentations and various film screenings celebrating yet another summer of this shared space.

Event Images by Shaun Vincent

FORTHCOMING - The Welcome Rest on the Road: Grizedale

In April 2017 I was commissioned to take my long-term project The Welcome Rest on-the-road, extending the series to the beautiful forest environment of Grizedale in Cumbria. 

These portraits in the forest, whilst knowingly modest, reward scrutiny, offering an articulation of how place and space enriches existence and how the seemingly mundane, yet complex, relationships between dogs and their companions enhance the very day.

Preparation is now well underway for the forthcoming exhibition, taking the images produced in April back to the Forest's Gallery for the summer. Many additional prints have been sent out to the dogs and their companions and to our delight a number of the sitters are planning to return to Grizedale to see the exhibition. 

No exhibition previews just yet, so for now a couple that just missed the final cut.

dom

ursa

The Welcome Rest on the Road: Grizedale

Early April 2017 saw my ongoing photographic series 'The Welcome Rest' taking 'to-the-road' and extended to the beautiful forest environment at Grizedale in Cumbria. Working within the actual forest and with the public, the Forestry Commission and Forest Art Works there was a three-day free photographic portrait shoot of dogs and their walkers. This project, funded by Arts Council England will become a solo exhibition and publication at the Grizedale Forest Visitor Centre - offering an articulation of how not only place and space enriches existence, but how the seemingly mundane - yet complex relationships - between dogs and their walkers enhance the everyday. 

And so within the beautiful woodland bothy at Grizedale I spent early April photographing passing dogs and their walkers. 

preparing for the shoot: goose/nelly/eva/ross/holly/tilly

the commute

As a thank you for taking part, walkers were given a Polaroid portrait as a quick takeaway. I remain surprised at how delighted and charmed people are by these humble images in an instant... added to that as the Polaroid stock I use expired in October 2019 results aren't consistent and can see unfortunate decapitations...

Luna

A polaroid negative

Humphrey & Geoffrey as a Polaroid negative

Milly as a Polaroid negative

The out-of-date stock isn't consistent...

This was a memorable shoot. For a woman who usually works so close to home, Cumbria seemed far from the usual stomping ground. But as ever, through the dogs conversations were readily created and the powerful relationship and bond between the human and canine became quickly evident. Working in film means the sitters don't get to see the final shots, these remain for now as negatives and in the coming week or so I shall begin preparing, printing and editing for the exhibition.

As usual, the dogs took the portrait seriously, always they looked to camera and held the gaze. 

hutch

These are of course knowingly modest portraits – but arguably reward scrutiny, showing as they do how lives are enhanced and conversations initiated through dog ownership. 

Forthcoming Exhibition Dates: 7th June '17–31st October '17 

Beneath the Mask: Artists, Archives and A/Gender at the Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury

It was my pleasure to convene Artists, Archives and A/Gender. The event, held at the Sidney Cooper Gallery,  provided an opportunity to gather for an exciting and provocative day of exhibitions, performance, in-conversations  and presentations. The day was prompted by Calude Cahun's exploration of identities and masking and was delivered through partnership and collaboration with UAL's Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC), PARC's biennial of research Moose on the Loose Festival (2017) and Canterbury Christ Church University's Centre for Research on Communities & Cultures; the Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice (INCISE); the Centre for Practice-Based Research in the Arts, plus the Sidney Cooper Gallery in Canterbury and the South East Archive of Seaside (SEAS) Photography.

The days's schedule:

10.00am                      Early Arrivals

10.10am                      Curatorial Walk and Talk: Beneath the Mask & Latent, Dr Katie McGown (Director of the Sidney Cooper)

10.40am                      Arrivals & Coffee

11.00am                      Welcome & Introductions by Dr Karen Shepherdson (Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Communities & Cultures), Dr Katie McGown & Dr Sara Davidmann (Moose on the Loose 2017 Guest Curator / PARC)

11.10am                      The Photographic Techniques of Claude Cahun as Masked Artist, James Stevenson, (Director of the V&A Photographic Studio, rtd)

11.40am                      Latent A Hidden History: Homosexuality and the Archive,

In Conversation I – Artist Dr Sam Vale (CCCU) with Prof Stephen Maddison (UEL)

12.10pm                      The Blushing Pavilion, Presentation by independent artist and curator Carlos Maria Romero & Sam Causer

12.40pm                      LUNCH with sweet treats curated/sponsored by PARC

1.40pm                        Creative collaborations and bringing “Ken: To be Destroyed” into publication, Dr Sara Davidmann and Prof Val Williams (Director of PARC) in conversation with Dr Karen Shepherdson,

 2.10pm                        Older Women Rock! Poetry as provocation and witness, Performance Poet Leah Thorn (ECPD Internation Research Fellow) with performance and interactions with the Catwalk Artists

 2.45pm                                    Fribs, Tribs and a deaf Tyre Smith: a brief history of androgyny, Prof Chris Mounsey (University of Winchester)

 3.15pm                     Responder to the Day, Prof Bee Scherer (Director of INCISE/CCCU) Responder

3.30-4pm                 Close, Conversations & Slow Farewells

Beneath the Mask: Artists, Archives and A/Gender at the Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury

March 16th 2017

10.00am – 4.00pm

With wonderful support I have organised the forthcoming event: 'Artists, Archives and A/Gender'. It will provide an exciting day of events, exhibitions and spectacle prompted by Claude Cahun's exploration of identities and masking. This one-day event is in partnership with UAL's Photography and the Archive Research Centre's 'Moose on the Loose' 2017 Festival. Contributions from a number of CCCU's centres’ for research include: the Centre for Research on Communities and Cultures; the Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice (INCISE); the Centre for Practice-Based Research in the Arts plus the South East Archive of Seaside (SEAS) Photography.

Come and join us.

To book click here: TICKETS

10.00am                      Early Arrivals

10.10am                      Curatorial Walk and Talk: Beneath the Mask & Latent

Katie McGown (Director of the Sidney Cooper)

10.40am                      Arrivals & Coffee

11.00am                      Welcome & Introductions by

Dr Karen Shepherdson (Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Communities & Cultures), Katie McGown & Dr Sara Davidmann (Moose on the Loose 2017 Guest Curator / PARC)

11.10am                      The Photographic Techniques of Claude Cahun as Masked Artist,

James Stevenson, (Director of the V&A Photographic Studio, rtd)

11.40am                      Latent A Hidden History: Homosexuality and the Archive,

In Conversation I – Artist Dr Sam Vale (CCCU) with Prof Stephen Maddison (UEL)

12.10pm                      The Blushing Pavilion,

Presentation by independent artist and curator Carlos Maria Romero

12.40pm                      LUNCH with sweet treats curated/sponsored by PARC

1.40pm                      Creative collaborations and bringing “Ken: To be Destroyed” into     publication,

Dr Sara Davidmann and Prof Val Williams (Director of PARC) in conversation with Dr Karen Shepherdson,

 2.10pm                      Older Women Rock! Poetry as provocation and witness

Performance Poet Leah Thorn (ECPD International Research Fellow) with performance and interactions with the Catwalk Artists

 2.45pm                      Fribs, Tribs and a deaf Tyre Smith: a brief history of androgyny,

Prof Chris Mounsey (University of Winchester)

3.15pm                        Responder to the Day

Prof Bee Scherer (Director of INCISE/CCCU) Responder

3.30-4pm                    Close, Conversations & Slow Farewells

Moose on the Loose Photo Book Launch

Delighted to be invited to take part in the 2017 Moose on the Loose Photo Book Launch. This event provides an opportunity to take a little bit of Margate in the form of Issue #1 of the welcome rest and the seaside (final few copies of Beyond the View first edition) off the Isle' and up to Bethnal Green.

I'll be among friends and great company (see above)  - do come by and say hello.

the welcome rest margate, issue #1

Beyond the View (2014, first edition)