- Venue
- Pump House Gallery
- Location
When you think about a photograph now – your mind probably thinks about your mobile phone, instagram, a computer screen, a camera screen. So visiting D Eye Y – you will be surprised to see peanut shells, chopsticks, tins, card boxes amongst other objects (I won’t spoil the surprises) – all self-built cameras.
The artists in the show (Nathan Birchenough, Nicholas Brown, Craig Kao, Savvas Papasavva – known as the artists’ group BBKP) are not ‘photographers’ in the traditional sense. They’re all sculptors which is very evident when you walk around the show, as the materials used are very suggestive of object making. You are aware of the everyday materality, physicality (you are aware of your own body in relation to the pieces), and the makeshift quality of these low-fi cameras.
The artists stripped back the whole process of analogue photography – it was a learning and experimental process for them as well as for the workshop participants who created the pinhole and slit scan cameras; and images on show. There were images of the urban environment as well as within Battersea Park. Some participants chose to sit for their own photos. But the subject matter wasn’t really as important as the experimentation and the ‘making’ of something tangible – a photograph that you can actually hold and then take away.
It was interesting visting the exhibition at night (for the private view) – walking in the dark through the setting of Battersea Park to reach the Pump House Gallery was a bit of a nervous experience – just because parks at night raises our suspicions and alertness. You are very aware of the darkness – the absence of light to shape objects and aid orientation. Contrast this to the open and welcoming nature of this participatory project – as central to this show, as the conveyance of humour and nostalgia of childhood wonderment at playing and building things to just ‘see how things work’.
There were also some pieces which couldn’t be viewed and some cameras that couldn’t be used during the private view because there was no daylight. It raised the important factor of light to photography – the warmth, surprise and ‘magic’ of light shaping an image on film. This show really captures that sense of play.
