Keep Photofusion Moving: support the crowdfunding campaign now

Anthony Carr, Big Bar Lake Ranch Revisited, 2014

Today I want to point readers to a crowdfunding campaign for Photofusion photography centre in Brixton London that is very dear to my heart. To date, the campaign is currently at £28,185 of a target of £40,000 with 29 days but we still need to push for more as it’s an all-or-nothing-campaign and ends on 2 June at 16.25.

There have been 212 backers so far including renowned photographer Wolfgang Tillmans who pledged an amazing £1,500 last week. If the momentum keeps up at this rate Photofusion’s campaign should meet its target but we need to keep letting people know. So please share this post and the campaign link: Keep Photofusion Moving.

Today I’m going to Photofusion to be filmed on camera regarding why I think Photofusion is important. That’s easy to answer, particularly as I have been involved with the organisation in a variety of capacities over the last decade.

I judge the annual Hotshoe Photofusion award—now in its seventh year— and via this have supported a number of emerging photographers who are also members of Photofusion. The winners from 2010-2015 are:

Anthony Carr (2015)
Lucia Pizanni (2014)
Katerina Mudronova (2013)
Liane Lang (2012)
Chloe Sells (2011)
Odette England (2010)

Photofusion is a hub, a place to meet, to take risks, to experiment, to discuss and to create. It has a mentoring and professional programme, SELECT and has hosted numerous exhibitions by many, now well-known, photographers in the early days of their career. I have also delivered and chaired talks, have been writing for its website and use the darkroom and digital scanning facilities to create personal work.

Please spread the word, share this campaign and Keep Photofusion Moving.

Impronta series, 2103 by Lucia Pizanni, Collodion wet plates on aluminium

 

 

Kickstarter Crowdfunding call for Alma Haser’s photo book Cosmic Surgery

The book cover

It will be a photo book set in a fictional, not too distant future, at a point where “intelligent materials” are just about to transform the world of cosmetic surgery.

Today, I want to point readers of this blog to a crowdfunding campaign Cosmic Surgery Kickstarter by Alma Haser that has just six days to go.

Patient no. 16′ Print

The book is based on a series of photographs made by Haser who creates sculptural portraits using origami shapes. These images play with dimension and space through transforming the sitter’s face into geometric shapes and patterns which deconstruct and then reimagine the original photographic portrait.

Last year the team produced a limited edition of 10 books by hand and this campaign is to raise money to produce the second edition which will expand on the initial ideas. The book will be designed by Emily Macaulay (Stanley James Press, who has worked alongside Haser on the project, and will be accompanied by a story by science writer Piers Bizony, both of whom have helped to introduce a narrative background, layout and unique construction.

Alma finishing off the last of the Cosmic Surgery Portraits.

Page example from the second edition

The book will be limited to 500 copies and will have a hardcover printed and foil embossed. It will be 190x240mm (slightly smaller than A4) and contain 48 pages filled with the original portraits and a few new ones that haven’t been shown before. There will also be a number of smaller booklets inside, containing the written content. The book will also include a pop-up portrait and a folded one.

To make a pledge and for more information on the Cosmic Surgery Kickstarter campaign.

The Photocopy Club & My Brighton team up for workshop and photocopy exhibition in lobby

Photograph by George Taylor

If you live or are visiting Brighton this month, why not pop into the hotel lobby of My Brighton and see The Photocopy Club’s, What Brighton Means to Me — a ‘Brighton Hall of Fame’ of pictures taken by local photographers celebrating Brighton’s “unique charm”. The show runs throughout February and features photocopied/Xerox photographs.

Photograph by David Newby

The Photocopy Club aims to produce contemporary photographic prints using a technology regarded as “being the most democratic and cost effective”. It will be interesting to see the images in the show and how they look reproduced as black-and-white photocopies, not as photographs.

Photograph by Sandra Harper

On Saturday 27 February the My Brighton-Photocopy Club partnership will be holding a zine-making and screen-printing workshop at My Brighton on Saturday 27th February. Tickets cost £10. Click here to book.

The zine-making workshop will provide an introduction to the history and cultural significance of zine making. Participants will all create a Brighton zine while The Photocopy Club team will assist with printing and binding styles. The event will also include a screen-printing masterclass where participants are able to create their own screen-print of an iconic Brighton scene.

Photo News: Third Dhaka Art Summit opens next month in Bangladesh

Safiuddin Ahmed, Receding Flood, 1959, soft ground etching, aquatint, 37x50cm, courtesy of the Ahmed Nazir Collection, Dhaka

News from around the world today and visual art in other places. Coming up next month is the chance to see a diverse selection of art works at the third edition of the internationally acclaimed Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), the world’s largest non-commercial platform for South Asian art. The exhibition takes place at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy from 5- 8 February, (details at end of post). It’s good to see that art work by Dayanita Singh will be included in the exhibition which also includes the work of many other visual artists who are unfamiliar to me.

“The 2016 edition of DAS showcases some of art from South Asia. Led by Samdani Art Foundation Artistic Director and DAS Chief Curator, Diana Campbell Betancourt, the Summit brings together artists, curators and thinkers to explore and share artistic work and practices from the region, provoking reflections on transnationalism, identity and time.

“Through its unique format and innovative curatorial approach, DAS is known for creating a generative space where participants can reconsider the past and future of art and exchange within South Asia and the rest of the world. Considered a central meeting point for art professionals from the region and further afield, those participating include over 300 emerging and established artists, internationally renowned curators and writers.

“The number of visiting institutions and partners from the United Kingdom this year reflect the flourishing support and interest in DAS and include Tate Modern, Tate Britain, V&A, Serpentine Galleries, Hayward Gallery, Delfina Foundation, The Tetley, Fiorucci Art Trust, Manchester Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery, New Art Exchange, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Liverpool Biennial and the Manchester International Festival, to name but a few.

“Also attending are internationally renowned institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York; Centre Pompidou in Paris; Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane; Artspace Sydney Visual Arts Centre; documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art; M+ in Hong Kong; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; CSMVS Museum in Mumbai; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and many others, including biennales and festivals from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the UK.

“In addition to exciting new commissions and exceptional curated group exhibitions, DAS events include talks, performances, films, book launches and more.

“Projects are curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt and include 13 newly commissioned works, as well as four works reconfigured within the Bangladeshi context. These celebrate the region’s pluralism and examine the fluid continuum of birth and experience in becoming an individual. The exhibition includes works by Lynda Benglis, Tino Sehgal, Shumon Ahmed, Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, Simryn Gill, Waqas Khan, Shakuntala Kulkarni, Prabhavati Meppayil, Haroon Mirza, Amanullah Mojadidi, Sandeep Mukherjee, Po Po, Dayanita Singh, Ayesha Sultana, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Munem Wasif and Mustafa Zaman curated by Daniel Baumann.

“From the over 300 applicants, curator Daniel Baumann, the Director of the Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, and his team of local curatorial assistants have selected 13 finalists for the 2016 Samdani Art Award Exhibition. Their work will be showcased at DAS, in partnership with Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council and the Delfina Foundation. The exhibition presents an exciting opportunity to see the work of emerging artists from South Asia, and the winner – which will be announced during the DAS opening dinner on February 5 – will receive an all-expense-paid three-month residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. The finalists are Ashit Mitra, Atish Saha, Farzana Ahmed Urmi, Gazi Nafis Ahmed, Muhammad Rafiqul Islam Shuvo, Palash Battacharjee, Rasel Chowdhury, Rupam Roy, Salma Abedin Prithi, Samsul Alam Helal, Shimul Saha, Shumon Ahmed and Zihan Karim.

“The jury comprises professionals from some of the world’s most important museums, including Catherine David (Deputy Director, Centre Pompidou), Aaron Seeto (curator, Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane), Beatrix Ruf (Director, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam) and Cosmin Costinas (Director, Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong).”

The Missing One curated by Nada Raza.
The Missing One was published in 1896 by J. C. Bose, and is thought to be one of the first science fiction stories in the Bengali language. Using the tropes and technologies of science fiction as a thematic beginning, Tate Modern’s Nada Raza has created an intergalactic, intergenerational exhibition that brings together artworks from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Architecture in Bangladesh curated by Aurelién Lemonier.
Aurélien Lemonier, architect & curator at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, explores the contemporary architecture scene of Bangladesh via the legacy of Muzharul Islam (1947-2017), who is known for his pursuit of “humanist modernity” in his contributions to the city’s architecture.

Mining Warm Data curated by Diana Campbell.
Betancourt with collaboration from Ruxmini Choudhury and Shabnam Lilani. This evocative group exhibition features works from artists from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal and Bangladesh. Mining Warm Data exposes the emotional history radiating from Chitra Ganesh and Mariam Ghani’s The Index of the Disappeared, a physical archive of post-9/11 disappearances, and a new chapter has been commissioned and realised for this show by Samdani Art Foundation, Yale University Law School’s Schell Center for Human Rights and Creative Time Reports.

The Performance Pavilion, curated by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh.
Shifting Sands, Sifting Hands is curated by visual artist Jana Prepeluh, Nikhil Chopra and Madhavi Gore, visual artists and founders of Heritage Hotel explores the notion of the now in the context of time and duration and the idea of everything being in a constant state of becoming, in the slippage(s) of time through movement or stillness, of the body in the recognition of death present in every moment as it passes.

Film Programme curated by Shanay Jhaveri.
Shanay Jhaveri, assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, presents a thoughtful selection of films called Passages, which includes hourly screenings of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s 1972 documentary about the writer-scholar Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of a Civilization, and a programme of films committed to exploring certain colonial and postcolonial conditions.

Rewind, the Summit’s first historical exhibition.
Curated by the Samdani Art Foundation’s Artistic Director Diana Campbell Betancourt, with a team including Beth Citron (Rubin Museum), Sabih Ahmed (Asia Art Archive) and Amara Antilla (Guggenheim), Rewind highlights the practices of South Asian artists active before 1980. Many of the works come from the Bangladesh National Collection and private collections from the region, with several exhibited for the first time in over 20 years.

Critical Writing Ensemble curated by Katya García-Antón and Antonio Cataldo.
Art writing has endured challenges that vary in nature around the world. Curated by Katya García-Antón, director and curator of the Office of Contemporary Art Norway, with Antonio Cataldo, a senior programmer at OCA, and the collaboration of Chandrika Grover Ralleigh (Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council), Diana Campbell Betancourt (Samdani Art Foundation), Katya García-Antón (OCA) and Bhavna Kakar (Take on Art), the Critical Writing Ensemble seeks to foster a community of art-writing peers by breaking the isolation that characterises much writing practice and creating a lively environment for intellectual exchange that culminates in a publication with international distribution.” From the press release.

Panel discussions
This programme of talks and discussions features renowned curators and artists ranges from topics that explore cross-border art histories and off-centre art initiatives to the challenges of protecting the past while building the future and navigating regional group shows.

Workshops
An array of programming and workshops are also on offer throughout the summit, including Asia Art Archive’s Live Feed Station, an on-site junction for viewing an array of some of the most interesting publications, art magazines, books and catalogues that have been published in the past century, and VAST Bhutan, a children’s workshop that works with the youth of Dhaka to make an immersive installation from local waste products.

Full programme as a PDF: Click HERE

Dhaka Art Summit
5–8 February 2016
10 am to 9 pm every day
Free entry. No registration.
Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
14/3 Shegunbagicha, Ramna Dhaka – 1000, Bangladesh

Photo show review Simon Roberts’ Pierdom Brighton & Photofusion SALON/15 award night

Today, here are some links to work published online recently—a review of Simon Roberts‘ photo exhibition, Pierdom on at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery until 21 February.

http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2016/01/pierdom-3/

And another post, The Big Night Out, over at Photofusion‘s website covering the Photofusion SALON/15 PV in December. I also write about my selection process, special mentions and the winner of the Hotshoe Photofusion Award 2015, Anthony Carr.

http://www.photofusion.org/the-big-night-out-photofusion-salon15-hotshoe-award/