A day in Bradford:
Got some family photographs photocopied (for collage purposes) at Daleys Art Supplies.
Site visit to see new proposed darkroom space (next to the one we were originally going to take on Rawson Place ). This new space has two small rooms as well as a kitchen and plumbing so is much better for our purposes, as we won’t need to get a partition built. We can use the money from the landlord for other uses. A resounding yes.
Coffee at Cafe Bianco with Ivan and Adam to discuss where to put the revolving door for the darkroom space, which we’re bidding for on Ebay.
Filmed a couple of vox pops, from Adam and Josh, talking about why the National Media Museum shouldn’t close on my camera phone for the film Fabric are helping to make for the anti-closure campaign (http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/l…) Hope I can get a few more over the weekend too.
One last look at the superb Tom Woods retrospective (http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisit/E…) at National Media Museum before it closes on 16th June. The last time I saw it in April, I was very struck with his “Men and Women’ groupings (http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/men-women-2), described as follows in the exhibition information:
‘Searching under his vast archive, Wood organised his photographs under the headings ‘Men’ and ‘Women’. What began to emerge was a subtle new reading of his work that dealt with gender alongside his other preoccupations with character and place. Displayed together without chronology, the fluid arrangement highlights the intentional visual play between the images, as well as Woods prolonged involvement with his subject matter’
I’m very interested in this as I’m working with different themed groupings within my own family archive, and have considered gendered groupings as one of the possibilities.
I wanted to have a closer look at Woods’ selections to look at how he chose to represent men and women and how do the images in each grouping relate to each other.
Here’s some notes from my smartphone:
Men: images of work, sport lounging. Drinking, pubs, boys: ‘In a Huff’
tribes: ‘gangolads’
Women: launderette, nude modelling, at bazaar, w children, Miss Brighton, ladies toilet attendant ‘cutout’ – holding photograph
‘Mother of the cleverest boy in England’
‘Lorna After Waitressing Shift’
Groupings with gesture, eg pairings ‘Two on Bikes’ and ‘Miss Brighton’ pair, and reclining series, backs of women
Visual echoes and symmetry particularly in ‘Women’ section
Afterwards, in the bookshop, I was struck by the cover image on a book called ‘Found photography’ I’ve been working a lot with drawing and cutting out ovals. Seeing this image excited me and reminded me I bought an oval template at Daleys this morning.
Want to get home and play now.
Save The National Media Museum petition: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-the-nat…
