Current

Morwenna Kearsley's artistic practice predominantly features analogue photographic processes. She continues to work with film and wet darkrooms long after the dominant take-over of digital photography not only out of support for a declining art form but because the slow, meditative process of capturing light and creating the photographic print is essential to the way she relates to the visual world.

Kearsley's interest has always been in alternative or antiquated photographic processes and their histories, which she has developed further this year by learning the technique of wet-plate collodion.

These processes described above are inextricably linked to her practice in conceptual terms as well. Kearsley's work is mainly figurative and she looks for shape and tone within an image. Her photographs feel very intimate, as though the viewer is looking in to a situation that he/she has stumbled across and is voyeuristically observing.

She enjoys collecting found photographs of both strangers and her own family which she sometimes re-uses in her own work but which act as inspiration regardless.

"There is always something hiding in my photographs; I am trying to create a tension between what you can see and what you want to see, to tell you the first part of a story and then cut you loose."

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In his artistic practice Ryan Gibson explores the talismanic nature of artefacts, such as souvenirs, family photographs and archival image, as a means of mapping the relationships we have to seemingly ubiquitous items. He predominantly uses photography within his practice and is concerned with the personal and formal relationship between memory and object.

It is inherent within our culture to collect places by recording the immediate environment. Without specific instruction tourists/amateur photographers from across the globe today still collect the same photographic mementos as their forefathers. This continual cycle of photographic re-presentation is a frequent focus of Gibson’s practice. With recent works taking inspiration from sourced materials that offer evidence of an event or events.

During the AiR residency Gibson plans to continue to explore the processes by which we culturally construct the ideal photograph and select a particular souvenir to summarise an entire experience or place. Using artefacts that are somewhat banal in their familiarity Gibson questions the notion that [universal] mementos serve as an unquestionable record of a single occasion or event.

Gibson’s work draws on notions of collective memory and shared histories and divides the visual representations of such events into their most basic form and function.

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Patrick has developed a process, which involves the deconstruction and reconstruction of culturally significant objects and areas in order to gain an insight into our relationship with technology science and history. Taking the form of ‘studio experiments’ his current films explore the materiality of objects, and of film itself, either by re-appropriating physical objects and materials and changing their intended use or pushing them beyond their capacity to function.

This process of translation is mirrored behind the scenes, where hand crafted objects created in the studio and found objects are transformed to function as tools of the filmmaking industry. His films scrutinise the tools of their own production while simultaneously questioning and disrupting the signifying systems-including artistic languages and cinematic languages-through which objects are attributed with meaning.

In this residency, Patrick will continue to develop and further contextualise his interest in the relationship between Art and Science. In particular, exploring the perception and understanding of time by cross-referencing scientific methods with filmic approaches. Patrick will also be working with a number of new materials and techniques to develop a significant body of new work.

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Katri Walker investigates and celebrates the fertile space between contemporary art, portraiture and documentary filmmaking. Subject matters vary widely but the common thread throughout is always the desire to explore new modes of reflection in a world in which reality is never a static given, but a complex set of relations. Through video installation, I explore subjective realities as a means of understanding our contemporary global predicaments, creating intimate works that document the physical and emotional geographies of my subjects.

Throughout the residency at Stills, I will continue to research and develop my practice whilst making the most of the gallery's fantastic technical resources. A key element of the residency period will be the development of a critical dialogue with Kirsten Lloyd during the preparation and realisation of the second instalment of Social Documents, a programme that deals with themes of particular relevance to my own practice.

Image The Making of 3 Guns for a Killing (installation view) 2011, Katri Walker HDV Diptych, 23 min

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From 18 June to 17 July 2011, International Departure Gate 11 exhibition is held in the spaces that previously housed the Sant’Agostino Hospital in Modena, Italy. Dedicated to photography students from ten training institutions across Europe, the aim is part of the didactic objectives that characterise the Fondazione Fotografia, the cultural project set by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, a project begun at the same time as its international collection of contemporary photography.

The focus of Valentina Bonizzi’s work is a concept of time in relation to a sense of place and the sense of responsibilities that we may or may not have towards it.

The political becomes the technical in the creative process. The use of the technical image, both still and moving, makes use of time as an artefact. Through experimental filmmaking Bonizzi is currently investigating the possibilities of revisiting our perception of personal stories together with hidden historical fact.

In her more recent work photography and video explore the role of language, artefact and location in creating identity within collapsed and expanded periods of time between what was and what is. Her works attempt to show what happens when traditions and language are taken out of their original context and preserved within a new situation, while in their place of origin, language, culture and ritual evolve at a much faster rate apparently without the need of preservation or celebration.

At present her practice is going towards experimental filmmaking and the possibilities of revisiting our perception of personal stories together with hidden historical facts.

Image Timeology, 2010 Valentina Bonizzi

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