Journal : PhotoHastings season of photography • 11
Exhibition News:
“Griffiths is a unique photographer, as he shows us
army life, not from an embedded viewpoint (like so many images around war), but direct from his experience of being there as he was a Soldier himself.”
– Martin Parr
Stuart Griffiths began taking photographs when he was a young soldier, carrying a ‘sure-shot’ instamatic camera in his chest webbing, alongside 120 live bullets, his water canisters and field dressings, whilst on patrol in West Belfast in the late 1980s. ‘Closer’ was Griffiths’ first solo exhibition which was selected by Charlotte Cotton, Val Williams & Martin Parr for the Brighton Photo Fringe OPEN 2010. Between 2003 and 2008, Griffiths photographed socially excluded veterans who were living in hostels, treatments centers, or, were homeless.
‘CLOSER’ – Stuart Griffiths
With their military careers behind them, these veterans, many of whom had been seriously injured, faced innumerable problems and showed remarkable resilience. The making of these photographs, and Griffiths’ own reflections on his life as a photographer were documented in ‘Isolation’, the 2009 documentary film made by Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull which will be shown to students of Sussex Coast College Hastings, during the exhibition. Acting as a counterpoint to these large-scale photographs, are Griffith’s candid photographs of army life, taken during his time in the Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Documenting the minutiae of service life, these photographs are both bleak and bizarre. Griffiths’ remarkable letters home, which were often highly illustrated, are also being presented as oversize Xeroxes for this installation. “I began making these photographs as a response to my personal feelings towards war . . . This was long before charities started using cuddly teddy bears as a way of making serious injuries acceptable to the masses . . . I wanted to show the horror of war and its aftermath and realised early on, it was the young people that carried the worst scars of all. To me, when I began working on Closer, it was to be a visual protest against war; now the work is complete, I still feel the same way.” – Stuart Griffiths
Images from top down: British soldier who was blinded in the Iraq War; Liverpool 2007 Stuart Griffiths © The youngest British soldier to be injured in the Iraq War; Bristol 2007 Stuart Griffiths ©
CLOSER 20th September to 7th October. Mon - Fri 10am-7pm Saturdays 10am-2pm. Sussex Coast College Hastings Station Approach, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 1BA Ph : 01424 442222 Email: info@sussexcoast.ac.uk
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