Interesting artists, photographers, filmakers and activists.
Suzanne Lacy - Lacy's work in Oakland , The Oakland Projects 1991-2001
My particular interest in this work was The Roof is on Fire, 1993-1994, Youth, Cops & Videotape, 1995 and No Blood/No Foul and the Oakland Youth Policy (1995-1996) Suzanne Lacy, Annie Jacoby, and Chris Johnson
Lacy is able to work with and alongside a group, a team of collaborators such as Chris Johnson and Ann Jacoby to address the here and now in Oakland at that time. What interests me, is she somehow enclosed the street into her work, the cultural identity of African American and Latin American highschool pupils that really needed to have a voice. The space provided and these series of interactions between the subjects, the audience (that became the subjects and part of the installation in The Roof is on Fire) really did inform the community. From the community came the groups and back to the community the groups go and inform. The idea to have Police and high school pupil basketball teams over a series of weeks was a success for both groups. The Oakland Projects became important in informing a youth policy in Oakland towards education and the law, this work is something that is so very useful.
Also Lacy's The Crystal Quilt (1985-1987), prior to Oakland Projects was also regarding thoughts of people that are often unheard or dismissed, elder ladies from the local Minnesota area were asked to attend and move their hands in a pattern set out by Lacy, their converstaions were relayed in multilingual audio during the installations.
Andrea Luka Zimmerman- Estate- a reverie, 2015
Zimmerman, as an embedded artist in the Haggerston Estate in Hackney that is now demolished made her film Estate. I realy enjoyed how she captured the natural interactions. Whilst she showed the struggle of the tenants facing the loss of their community and homes, she also mananged not to make a documentary. The story line unfilded so naturally. The people starring were the tenants, not actors or performers of any kind. There were moments that the silence and imagery filled the script, without the need for anything else as the community were left abondoned and struggling, yet they were still rich to have each other whilst others had left their lifelong homes.
Because this is a social/political subject that is close to home for me. I could easily relate not only to the community, I could also relate to Zimmerman as an embedded socially engaged artist.
ASH, Architects for Social Housing who were at the Q&A after the showing of Estate at the Tate Modern have gone on to inform our group Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group, especially as we support those vulnerable social hosuing tenants that are facing eviction.
https://architectsforsocialhousing.wordpress.com/
Jo Spence, Hackney Flashers Collective
Feminist and socialist collective of women who produced exhibitions such as ‘Who’s Holding the Baby?’ and ‘Women and Work’. Emerging from the activities of the Photography Workshop, the group was established in 1974. Their work was often shown in colleges, libraries and community centres. The group’s aim was to document invisible female work, legitimatizing the economic and social worth of women’s labour. (Taken from Jo Spence official website) http://www.jospence.org/work_index.html
Andrew Jackson, Fire (Film Trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn0zzcrxnf8
http://www.andrewjackson.photography/-/galleries/commissioned-works/fire
Important use of imagery and audio, hidden anonymous real life people, social and political
Also Home is a Person, how relevant to my own work that is exploring my own community and social inbalances locally to me.
http://www.andrewjackson.photography/-/galleries/commissioned-works/home-is-a-person
Jackson works with a cut away shot, small details with a greater meaning, something I have been exploring and using.
Syd Shelton, Rock Against Racism , Autograph Gallery
http://autograph-abp.co.uk/exhibitions/rock-against-racism
Like how he is talking about the timeline with imagery and his life. Very powerful how still images and audio can work
Anthony Lam- Notes from the Street, 1995
Notes from the Street (1995)
'My personal involvement with the British Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets and its young people stretches back almost ten years, firstly as a local youth worker and presently as a photographer. Notes from the Street is informed by my own experiences and is part of a photographic response to changes and transitions within this community.
Involvement with this group of British Bangladeshi youths from Shadwell came about through photographing 'rave' events they organised between 1989 and 1992. From this work, I felt the need to develop a more in-depth and critical body of work that explored these young men's lives and recorded their perceptions.
Quotes are taken from recorded interviews; they are part of a process of negotiation and consent over the ways in which the young men wished to be represented. All the photographs and interviews were produced between 1993-1994 and they offer a viewpoint of the experiences of a group of young British Bangladeshi men at a particular point in time.
Notes from the Street shows street lifestyles and sensibilities which are distinctly separate from those of the older generation and are clearly influenced by the urban environment of East London.
At a time when a shift in values is occurring within this community, these young men assert a unique sense of identity located in both Bangladeshi and British cultures.'
http://www.anthonylam.co.uk/docs/notesfromthestreetprojectinfo.htm
Whats interesting was looking at his work at Autograph it was evident just how he had built up a trust and strong relationship with the British Asian youth of that time, this depth is visible in his work. Similar to Zimmerman, theres an unguarded air about the subjects. That's not easy as a visitor to a group. Its eveident that over the timespan he was with them that they trusted his eye and camera usage to create some powerful imagery.
The Infinite Mix, (Collective of artists) Haywood Sep-Dec 2016, London
http://theinfinitemix.com/
"The future of all space is both the physical experience of being in that space and broadcasting that experience to the world," says Alex Eagle, Creative Director of The Store.
Artist I enjoyed was Kahlil Joseph - m.A.A.d (2014)
'Alternately intimate and epic, Kahlil Joseph’s dual-screen film installation m.A.A.d. brings together a range of source materials to create a prismatic portrait of the people and streets of Compton, a working class and largely African-American neighbourhood in Los Angeles. Made in response to Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 album good kid, m.A.A.d city, Joseph’s work incorporates home videos shot by the singer’s uncle in 1992, with news footage of police violence, and his own footage featuring scenes that veer from everyday life to magical realism and the macabre. For his soundtrack, Joseph remixed alternate takes from Lamar’s recording, distorting and cutting them in ways that augment the unexpected rhythms of his picture editing. With Lamar’s lyrics at times serving to provide pointed bursts of narration, the interplay between image and sound elaborates a complex, original and compelling vision of a contemporary African-American community.'
