UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER
BA PHOTOGRAPHY DEGREE SHOW 2019
BA PHOTOGRAPHY DEGREE SHOW 2019
BA PHOTOGRAPHY DEGREE SHOW 2019
EXHIBITORS ELOISE ARNOTT
ABHISHEK JOSHI
IDA ASPAAS OLSEN
EMILY KOPASKIE
DOMINIC BANES
AIMEE MACKENZIE
TALITHA BELL
EMMA MURPHY
FRANCESCA BROOKS
GODA MARIJA NORKUTE
ETHAN BUCHER
PIETRO PANZA
ANNALISA BURELLO
IRIS PAPASAVA
MYLES BURNIP
ALICE PINCHES
AMANDA DENNY
PAOLA RIGAMONTI
AMY ENTICKNAPP
HANNAH SALVIDGE
TAMARA RIBEIRO FERRARI
MARY SCOTT
CARMELLA FISHER
LOUI SHORT
DAN GADSBY
SORIN BOGDAN SOFIAN
ELENA GALBUSERA
HANNAH SOMMER
LAUREN GODFREY HARRIS SOFIA TOPCHISHVILI ASYA GUREVICH
NURCAN YORULMAZ
POLETA IANEVA
ELOISE ARNOTT
Shooting a Welshman on a Bridge Shooting a Welshman on a Bridge is an exploration into deep memory and visualisation. The project attempts to recreate what a memory looks like in the mind’s eye, whilst also bringing attention to the odd climate in Chester, North West England, regarding the local’s attitudes to Wales and the Welsh who are a stone’s throw away across the border which runs through the city. The images represent what it feels like to move from the Welsh half of Chester to the English half and how this affects childhood and memory. The border between the welsh and the English in Chester is not only geographical but also sociological. The final images were shot on new film and film which expired ten years ago, with the expired film being shot in Cardiff, as this is when I last visited the city. The layers and colours in the image represent the feeling of a memory, as do the light marks and dust spots.
mail: eloisearnott@gmail.com www.eloisearnott.wixsite.com/eloisearnott
IDA ASPAAS OLSEN
Come To Me Now This project is created in San Giorgio del Sannio, Italy, and shows the seasons of August, December, and March. It portrays Giuliana and her close surroundings, while also looking at society’s expectations of the female role. As she grew up people used to laugh and call her a boy. Later, she’d asked her mother to buy her a skirt. She never used it. On one of our trips to Italy, something similar happened. We walked past a stranger in the street who shouted after her to get some meat on her bones. This moment took hold of me. Prejudice is simply an artificial border that cripples humanity. I’d rather like to see the raw within us, unrelated to constructed norms.
mail: aspaasolsen@gmail.com www.idasusanne.com
DOMINIC BANES
Orbit 23,000 miles above the Earth moving at a speed of 6,710 miles per hour geostationary satellites are in full circumference around the Earth matching its rotation. With this the satellites will not appear to move in the sky which is why we see them as white dots in the image. These satellite that are mainly used for transmitting data and information such as providing internet access and bringing the news to our televisions. Satellite technology has become a priority of our everyday life using thousands of different satellites to transfer information around the world.
www.dominicbanes.myportfolio.com
TALITHA BELL
FUGUE Fugue state or psychogenic fugue, is a dissociative disorder and a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity, including the memories, personality, and other identifying characteristics of individuality.
www.talithabell.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/talitha_bell/
Starring: Julie Obscure MUA: Bernardo Ferreira
FRANCESCA BROOKS
A Disposable Life A Disposable Life is a body of work representing the destruction of Earth due to issues like plastic. In this case particularly single use plastic bags which take a thousand years to decompose, meaning all single use plastic bags ever made are still around today. People still use single use plastic bags without a thought of where the bag will end up. It is estimated that 4 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide annually and only 1% of the bags are returned for recycling. I wanted to portray three potential endings for all living things and the Earth itself due to plastic. The suffocation of the human race, the world’s nature and the Earth as a whole.
mail: francescabrooks11@gmail.com Instagram: @francescabrooksphotography www.francescabrooks.co.uk
ETHAN BUCHER
The Language Of Adolescents My practice is somewhere between documentary and portraiture. Often studying subjects that I can relate to or empathise with, I explore themes of youth and their subcultures. This project, ’The Language Of Adolescents’ explores, documents and celebrates adolescents during their transition from childhood to adult, a time filled with ambiguity, anxiety and immaturity. The contrasts prominent during this transition influenced the visual style I found myself adopting as the project grew. Between a night out and the morning after; confidence and anxiety, immaturity and maturity.
mail: ethanbucher@hotmail.co.uk www.ethanbucher.co.uk
ANNALISA BURELLO
The Seeker Impermanence, a tryptic of increasingly out-of-focus images, and Enlightenment, a single image of a luminous sphere and its ‘reflection’, stand metaphorically for different states of our inner reality: the turbulent state of consciousness of the ordinary person, which can be steadied through the practice of meditation, juxtaposed against the veteran meditator’s enlightened mind who experiences inner calm and unity with the cosmos. These images aim at instantiating a contemplative state in the viewer about spiritual matters. They also wish to bring attention to the spiritual discourse in contemporary photographic practices. They are the result of an agnostic’s investigations into the relationship between creativity and spirituality, the nature of consciousness, meditative practices, and the neurology of the left and right hemispheres.
E: burelloa@icloud.com Instagram: @Annalisa_Burello
MYLES BURNIP
If I Were A Flower, Where Would I Grow? The series examines the fading conceptions of masculinity and asks its place within the modern age of acceptance and individuality. Is masculinity a term associated with the preconceptions of the previous century? By examining the relationship that modernity plays on those who identify as men, what do we really mean by masculine, and does it have room to grow in our contemporary societal structures? The environment and the sitter merge as one in the expectation of conformity, can someone truly grow to be themselves in a world obsessed with the individual?
mail: mylesburnip@outlook.com Instagram: @deep.water.culture
AMANDA DENNY
Bitter Revenge Bitter Revenge takes the form of a three act play, and is driven by two narrative threads set some 100 years apart with heartbreak, unstable relationships and rejection at their core. One of these is a Victorian woman’s, Christiana Edmunds, who became known as the ‘Chocolate Cream Killer’ and ‘Venus of Broadmoor’ the other is mine. From the weaving of these two narratives a third emerges, a long-awaited closure - the final act. The book considers a woman’s place in the world, mental resilience, the imbrication of time and chance encounters that alter the paths you travel on. This Victorian woman came onto the shelf of my life, igniting old memories by frequent co-incidental connections between places, the Sussex police, failed romance and its cognitive effects. Using archival material, personal documents, literature and still life imagery, Bitter Revenge delves into themes of loneliness, fear of abandonment, social stigmas, mental health and memory.
mail: amandadenny@me.com www.amandadenny.com Instagram: @amandadenny_photography
AMY ENTICKNAPP
Brutalism in a Different Light Brutalism in a Different Light intends to provide the viewer with an alternative perspective on Brutalist architecture. The title’s double meaning references the aesthetic and the literal lighting itself, whilst it secondly refers to the feel and atmosphere of the images. The combination of lighting and colour palette constructs an atmosphere that makes it appear as though the architectural structures belong to a warmer climate. These two components aim to transform these urban spaces into tropical utopias.
mail: amyenticknapp@yahoo.co.uk Instagram: amyenticknappx
TAMARA RIBIERO-FERRARI
The Mother and The Sea - La Mère et La Mer I am in love with the sea. I always have been, as long as I can think. I feel drawn to it, inexplicably so. I am concerned with the relationship between the mother and the daughter, I dip into my memories and I am connecting these to my mother and the sea. She has named me after the blue sea and the black sky from her memories. My mother called me Da-mare Stella Lucia - a star by the sea (loosely translated from Italian). The portraits are intimate glimpses of my Mother’s body, a place which signalises home to me. My mother is my island and my stormy sea.
www.tamararibeiro.com mail: triebrioferrari@gmail.com Istagram: @_tamara_ferrari
CARMELLA FISHER
CORRODED: The Story of Joe Davies CORRODED combines a five-foot high portrait alongside an archive catalogue which reports the story of Joe Davies, the victim of an acid attack, by ‘father figure’ Roger Comer in July 2017. With the first report dating back to 1736, acid attacks are not a new phenomenon within the U.K. However, since 2012, London has become the world capital for acid attacks on young men, with street gangs increasingly using ‘face melters’ against their targets. In 2017 alone, 465 people were victims of acid attacks.
mail: info@carmelaphoto.com Instagram: @carmela.photo
DAN GADSBY
West of Aran West of Aran is a documentation of Hy-Brasil, an island off the coast of Ireland logged on maps for hundreds of years. This book explores the unique people, flora and fauna still present today. Island nations in particular, all share one unchanging aspect of national identity, the sea, a physical geological border. Something that can provoke a worrying sense of segregation, isolation and inaccessibility within its inhabitants. West of Aran explores these serious contemporary issues while highlighting an unusual folkloric slice of history.
mail: dangadsby853@gmail.com www.dangadsby.co.uk
ELENA GALBUSERA
Endangered: Concrete Beauties This series addresses the precarious status of brutalist buildings worldwide: imminent demolition. Today the condition of brutalist complexes is in significant jeopardy, so is our cultural heritage. Within this project, each poster sees a threatened structure as a protagonist. Six prints, six endangered buildings located across six continents. As of 2019, almost two hundred structures have been officially registered as under threat of redevelopment or destruction. At a time when the vanishing of cultural property interests contemporary society, I intend to raise awareness about brutalism’s decay in an attempt to hinder its progressing.
mail: hello@egalbusera.com www.egalbusera.com
LAUREN GODFREY HARRIS
The Boxer This series was created over 6 months during training sessions at Islington Boxing Club and was initially conceived out of a curiosity into the brutal and visceral nature of boxing. IBC nurtures some of the nation’s best amateur boxers and is a cornerstone of the community, acting as a space of freedom and expression for its young people. An intense hyper-masculinity fills the gym every evening, however, what I unexpectedly came to observe was tenderness and compassion amongst the boxers and their coaches. A co-existing strength and vulnerability, often concealed from the outside world, was revealed. The moments of care, stillness and composure captured in the project are of equal importance in the success of a boxer as their fierce performance in the ring.
mail: info@laurengharris.co.uk www.laurengharris.co.uk
ASYA GUREVICH
Through The Eyes Of Others In my project my main intention was to draw on the remnants of the childhood of people who grew up during Soviet times. This is not only documenting the personal history of my grandparents’ generation but I also wanted to draw parallels with a traumatic period in history when scarcity reigned and it was practically impossible to acquire personal possessions; such as books and toys. I was able to vicariously experience a lifestyle which, by the time I was born, was simply a remnant of the past, not the distant past, but nevertheless the values of that time were slowly disappearing. It was also a way for me to learn about my personal history and the history of Soviet times through the eye of small toys, statues and my family members.
mail: gurevich.asya@gmail.com www.asyagurevich.photography.com
POLETA IANEVA
Unexpected Blossoms eunoia (n.) beautiful thinking, well mind This project dwells on the acceptance of one’s body through small acts of self-love. The subject gifts themselves their favourite flower. This intention is then captured on a part of their bodies that has not been fully embraced yet. This is an ongoing series, a little performance of humans’ psyche in search of eunoia; in search of beautiful thinking of their own bodies. www.sublimeconnecting.com Instagram: @fragile.dance mail: sublimeoceans@gmail.com
ABHISHEK JOSHI
Black Park Black Park in South Buckinghamshire, criss crossed with pathways, is a prime example of our ability to manage and control nature. Yet the reserve also implies our reliance upon nature.
mail: ajoshi17798@gmail.com www.ajoshi17798.wixsite.com/ajphotography
EMILY KOPASKIE
Melakas - They are Me and I am Them Around the time we were expected to start thinking about our Final Projects, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. While most of the symptoms attached to it such as impulsivity felt right to me, the part about lacking a strong sense of self surprised me. Since a young age, books and cinema have deeply inspired my creativity. My first impulse when finding a location for self-portraiture is to convey a character and to create an ambiguous scene. As I reflect on this process, I have realized I have absorbed a variety of female tropes into my identity which is translated through self-portraiture. By analysing my impulsivity in my performance for self-portraits, I begin to understand my emotions and the identity I have curated.
mail: melakas.studios@gmail.com Instagram: melakas_
AIMEE MACKENZIE
I’m Sorry, He Died Today As a neurodivergent artist, I use photography as a form of mindfulness. This particular project is focused on the death of my father, its repercussions on my relationship with my mother, and the road trip that finally brought us peace. ‘there is something soothing about the quiet oblivion of trees passing by, about the blur of the great beyond, that you might never get to see, passing by in an instant, never knowing quite what lies on the other side of the woods.’
www.AimeeMackenzie.Photography mail: info@AimeeMackenzie.Photography Instagram: @MannazPhotography
EMMA MURPHY
Rage-Action-Resolution Repression Wrongdoing Fury Acknowledgement Risk Expression Aggression Unapologetic Resilience Change Women must show their rage for the women who cannot be heard and for the next generation. Without rage and action, resolution will never be possible. mail: emma_murphy_1@hotmail.com www.emmamurphylondon.com Instagram: @emurphs
GODA MARIJA NORKUTE
Harvest I confess. This has become a slight obsession over the past years. The length, the colours, the textures, all the shiny deep undertones and the light golden highlights. How does it feel, is it liberating or incarcerating? Perhaps neither. Who have I become? The need to preserve and control feels embedded in me as is the need to absorb it all and be consumed by it. How do I consume such an object? How do I transform myself? Harvest is a series exploring notions of envy, greed and femininity while seeking to explore objects of desire separate from the body shifting into a commercialised commodity being sold at a global scale.
mail: hello@godanorkute.com www.godanorkute.com
PIETRO PANZA
Postcards The realisation of Postcards was mainly inspired by Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and by John Berger’s television series and book Ways of Seeing. Both Marxists thinkers, they stressed the idea that technology had transformed the way works of art are produced and experienced. The authenticity, or aura, of an artwork was undermined by ‘the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, namely photography’. Driven by financial purposes, museums have contributed to such a crisis by investing in reproductions of all sorts and forms based on the artworks they display. Can art be for everyone? What is the role of the artist nowadays? What is the current relationship between the viewer and the artwork? Has art become a mere commodity? These are the central questions posed by Postcards. mail: pietropanzaph@gmail.com Instagram: @pietropanzaph
IRIS PAPASAVA
‘Ιθάκη (Ithaca)’ In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’s homeland, Ithaca, is an important symbol because it represents the desire for home. Many of us are able to relate to this desire, to return to our homeland. But the homeland can be many things. Ιθάκη (Ithaca), shot on 35mm, is a work which explores the use of photography as a therapy in the family environment and how this brings up the issue of construction of self-identity. This work is a tool for self-exploration and it helps me to improve and raise self-awareness and also empower self-esteem. These images give me a stimulus and a trigger to start a natural conversation with my inner self and to express my authenticity and testify my personal truth. ‘I hadn’t met myself yet… for that, I had created a mysterious atmosphere around me. I couldn’t see any key or handle to open that ‘magic box’ and find inside the woman I wanted to be. I kept on breaking myself until I realized that I had to wander, search and create that woman.’
mail: irispapasava@gmail.com www.iris.papasava.gogowebspace.com Instagram: @irispapasava
ALICE PINCHES
You Don’t Know What This Means to Me
This project looks at the role photography plays as a tool of memory, examining the mass of images that can surround just a single person in a short span. I’ve drawn a direct comparison from the mass of photographs that exist of me, documenting all 21 years of my life, with that of my mum, who grew up working class and moving around a lot. Many of the precious few photographs that were even taken of her in that time became lost. Have I lived more than my mother because there’s more photographic evidence that I have? Of course not.
So, what’s the point in all these photographs?
PAOLA RIGAMONTI
The Day We Oceans are acidifying at a rate that poses a great menace to marine life. The seas are nowadays an awe-inspiring yet fragile giant. Plunging in open waters and staring, amazed, at their unsuspected life is my way to bond with the oceans. The Day We is a virtual dive which hopes to trigger a real connection. The more numerous the people connecting with the oceans, the greater the chances to keep them alive.
mail: paolariga3@gmail.com www.paolarigamonti.com
HANNAH SALVIDGE
Intermittence Based in the seaside town of Hastings, Intermittence is a project about memory, reexploration, re-discovery, and longing for a past version of a place and self. Shot over numerous trips, the project documents my return to Hastings, where I spent a lot of time as a child, after around fifteen years. Visiting places that held my most prominent memories, I found somewhere that was very familiar in appearances, but entirely different in atmosphere. I began to question the accuracy of my own memories over the course of the project, raising questions regarding the difficulties often experienced in deciphering between the real and the fabricated when looking back on the past after many years.
mail: hannahjsalvidge@gmail.com www.hannahsalvidge.com Instagram: @hannah.salvidge
MARY SCOTT
The Siren These camera-less cyanotypes were created by physically walking into the sea with chemically coated paper, allowing a wave to make a completely original and direct imprint of itself. This project’s aim was to focus on photography as a process and the cyanotype technique; pushing boundaries in the ways in which we capture an image. However, in the process, a new relationship was formed between nature and myself as themes of nostalgia and loss are prominent. Based on a poem written by me about my relationship with the sea, this project explores much more than just a technical process.
mail: maryescott97@gmail.com Instagram: @maryscottart
LOUI SHORT
Sour Sweet, Flower Bleak The project is a visual reiteration of my debut EP Sour Sweet, Flower Bleak which I released online earlier this year. The video offers an intimate view into my private life as an artist, that depicts a period of self-reflection and my understanding of reality. My diaristic combination of photography and film attempts to introduce my sense of immediacy, alongside the close relationships I have between my subjects and mediums.
mail: louishort1@gmail.com Instagram: @loui_short
SORIN BOGDAN SOFIAN
The Last Place On Earth The series is a social documentary photographed in the middle of Apuseni Mountains, Romania. After more than one hundred years of gold and silver exploitation the people left behind as the mines have closed are still living in appalling conditions. Minimum investment in the infrastructure by the Romanian government and foreign mining companies have left people like Tarau Aurel (pictured) with no other choice but to transport goods by an ox cart. Plans to open the biggest gold and silver mine Europe in the same area are an ongoing problem for the locals of Rosia Monatana who are currently fighting Canadian giants Gabriel Resources to stop this.
mail: sofiansorinbogdan@yahoo.com www.sorinbogdan.co.uk
HANNAH SOMMER
The Bottom of the Hill Portobello Road is one of the most culturally influential neighbourhoods in London, withstanding a long history of artistic, social, and cultural movements. Over the years, as gentrification has crept in and transformed what was once a bohemian mecca of limitless expression and community roots, Portobello struggles to hold onto its independent identity. Few individuals remain who can recall its previous days and continue on its legacy through their character and community. The Bottom of the Hill is a documentary photo book that reflects the community as it was once seen and how it is now, through portraiture of the members who make this area so vibrant and inclusive.
SOFIA TOPCHISHVILI
Don’t Call Me Vodka DCMV is a continuous project that depicts the lives of people that live in the Russian Federation. Growing up in Russia, the morality and ethics of communism are, for me, an ever present part of society. People in Russia do not live, they survive. The project was photographed across Saratov, Russia, using a 35mm camera to highlight the postSoviet nostalgia that is still so palpable in this city. The core of this project is intrinsically reminiscent of my Russian childhood. After visiting quite rural and isolated parts of my hometown, I captured ex-convicts, war veterans, and working class people. Multiple interviews were conducted about life before, during, and after prison, highlighting the struggle for these people to identify themselves with certain social groups and to contribute to everyday life. However, at the core of the project, themes of political oppression, depression, addiction, and corruption were explored.
www.sofiatopchishvili.com Instagram: @sofitop
NURCAN YORULMAZ
Bubble A triptych installation, continuous slide show made of 515 mobile phone images. Bubble is about consumerism and smart phones. Our daily lives have long been defined by technology and digital means. We communicate and have a virtual presence on digital platforms, electronic screens and in particular our mobile phones which have become both our friend and our addiction. Through them we live in our own bubble of consumption; from music to movies to shoes to beds, what we eat and drink, we continually see and consume through our mobile phones.
mail: nurcan@yorulmaz.co.uk
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