The Dance

The Dance from the project Time stands still when I think of you

The Dance was first shown in September 2010, at Gingerline, a pop-up restaurant and art space. Printed and framed (24”x30”), the image was propped up in an alcove of a converted Victorian shop, and was accompanied by a selected 1950s soundtrack. Guests were invited to sit down on a small stool to view the image, whilst listening to the music through headphones.
I was interested in creating an intimate space between the viewer and the people in the image, and I wanted to bring to life the sense of celebration captured in the original photograph. In the viewer's presence and mind the people in the image were able to dance again, for the first time since the photograph was taken, approximately 60 years earlier.

I am interested in the way the context of an image affects its meaning, and how each time it is shown or reproduced the new context alters people’s reading of it.
On 8th March 2011 The Dance was posted onto a disused billboard site in Dalston, London. Situated on the corner of Shacklewell Lane and Seal Street, and measuring 2.5 m x 1.5 m, it can now be seen by people walking and driving past. In terms of time, place, and society, the scene depicted in the image contrasts dramatically with the urban context that surrounds it, allowing the image to multiply itself by creating different references and meanings.

The image will remain on public display indefinitely, until defaced by others, or eroded by the elements.

Before

During

After

The Outing

The Outing from the project Time stands still when I think of you

After scanning the original a5-sized photograph (dated circa 1905), I first showed The Outing at Gingerline, a pop-up restaurant and art space, in September 2010. It was displayed as a 3m x 2m digital projection. Visible through the windows of a Victorian shop front in Crystal Palace, the shadows and movement of the people and traffic outside produced a rippling effect on the glassy surface of the water in the photograph.

Time stands still when I think of you

This project derives from an archive of over 100 family photos, the earliest of which dates from the turn of the nineteenth century. They had been discarded in a skip in Belsize Park, North London, where they were discovered by Shar Camilleri early last year.

It is a project about time. I am less concerned with the individual story behind each of the images, but more with a generic identity, that can be explored and extended according to the different experiences of everyone who sees them.

Drawing on universal feelings of loss, nostalgia, melancholy and hope, I take these photographs from their original and unknown context in the hope of creating new personal narratives, individual to each image. 


While we are all connected by our personal memories, as well as by our ability to dream, we also crave a sense of belonging, and are pre-occupied with a continual and possibly never-ending search for identity in and through the lives of others.


For a full documentation of this project click here