Resolution is not the point.

Photo50, London Art Fair
Business Design Centre, Islington London N1 0QH 17-21 January, 2018

Event: Photography Focus Day, 19 January, 2018. Hemera joins artists, Larry Achiampong, David Birkin, and Qiana Mestrich from the exhibition to explore key themes emerging from the work on display.

Press: Photomonitor, Photoworks, Evening Standard

Curated by Hemera Collective


Pio Abad
Larry Achiampong
David Birkin
Foundland Collective
Qiana Mestrich
(play)ground-less
Susan Schuppli
Traces of Nitrate (Ignacio Acosta, Louise Purbrick, Xavier Ribas)
James Tylor and Laura Wills
Marie Yates

The exhibition entitled ​Resolution is not the point. reflects the concerns with which Hemera operates as a collaborative and evolving entity. The first Photo50 curated by a collective, the exhibition will feature artists from nine countries, including several collectives working across continents; emphasising the rise of global collaboration within photography. The exhibition will feature acclaimed British artists ​Larry Achiampong​, ​Marie Yates and ​David Birkin alongside artists who will be showing in the UK for the first time, including New York-based ​Qiana Mestrich and Australian​ ​duo​​ ​James​ ​Tylor​​ ​and​​ ​Laura​ ​Wills​.

Resolution is not the point. considers photography and lens-based media as a catalyst for interdisciplinary exchange and collective action. Since the 19th century, photography has existed within and between traditional boundaries of practice, shifting between scientific apparatus and art. The works on display are linked by this desire to draw upon the metamorphic nature of the photographic image. The exhibition also reflects the increasing desire to collaborate amongst artists as they push conceptual and technical boundaries of image-making, reaching beyond their own specialisms and drawing on the circulation of images,​ ​knowledge,​ ​and​ ​resources.

A key theme in this year’s selection is ecological concerns as seen in ​Traces of Nitrate​, an ongoing research project by photographers ​Xavier Ribas and ​Ignacio Acosta​, working with art historian ​Louise Purbrick,​ that investigates the colonial legacy of British investment in the nitrate and copper mining industries of Chile and the subsequent effects of global trafficking. Meanwhile, ​Susan Schuppli​’s film ​Can The Sun Lie? ​explores the longstanding dispute between lay knowledge and scientific expertise. The title is taken from a question posed in a landmark 1886 US court case, where photographs were first used as legal​ ​evidence​ ​and​ ​is​ ​reanimated​ ​by​ ​current​ ​climate​ ​change​ ​debates.

Resolution is not the point. also explores the way in which alternative narratives are created when original forms are reinterpreted in new contexts, particularly through the use of archival and found photographs as a tool for social and political critique. ​James Tylor and Laura Wills​’ project ​The Forgotten Wars seeks to decolonise the history of the Australian Frontier wars ​(1788 - 1930) between the invading British Government and Aboriginal Australians. Through a series of drawings of colonial era maps and documents on photographic prints of the contemporary rural landscape, their work challenges representations of Australian cultural identity through layered depictions of the land, combining Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. Meanwhile, ​Qiana Mestrich​’s Black Doll Series abstracts original images of black dolls for sale on sites such as Etsy and Ebay. The resulting works are displayed with the seller’s original captions, prompting the viewer​ ​to​ ​challenge​ ​and​ ​deconstruct​ ​stereotypes​ ​and​ ​personal​ ​archives​ ​of​ ​visual​ ​memory.

The exhibition will also offer a platform for artists who are shifting traditional definitions of artistic production and circulation. An example of this is the four artists who form the group ​(play)ground-less​ and their ​piece ​​Hollow Tongues #2 ​which speculates upon how 3D imaging technologies, specifically game engines, can be harnessed​ ​as​ ​a​ ​tool​ ​for​ ​shared​ ​seeing​ ​and​ ​participation​ ​through​ ​Virtual​ ​Reality (VR). Contesting the notion of VR as a perfected representation of reality, ​Hollow Tongues #2 combines videos, images, 3D modelling, animations and text in the form of subtitles and spoken word, experienced through VR headsets. Visitors to Photo50 will also be able to see the lesser-known photographic works by ​Larry Achiampong​, an artist who uses imagery, live performance and​ ​sound​ ​to​ ​explore​ ​ideas​ ​surrounding​ ​class,​ ​cross-cultural​ ​and​ ​post-digital​ ​identity.

Qiana Mestrich’s artistic practice centres on a continuing investigation into the camera’s ability to imply, construct, or deny a narrative. The Black Doll Series abstracts online source images of black dolls for sale on sites such as Etsy and Ebay and the resulting digital images are displayed with their original seller’s descriptions as captions. In this work, the artist uses abstraction as a dynamic means to disrupt stereotypical representations of each doll, and in doing so challenges historical constructions of race and gender.

From the position of artists working between Europe and the Middle East, Foundland Collective speculate what the relentless flow of recent traumatic events might mean for the future. The New World utilises archival photographic images to narrate the travels of Amer and Sana Khaddaj, Lebanese musicians of Palestinian origin who migrated to the United States in 1947. Created in response to a residency at the Faris & Yamn Naff Arab American Collection at the Smithsonian Archive Center in Washington DC, the experiments with different forms of working with a photographic archive critically reflect upon what it means to produce politically engaged, de-colonial storytelling.

Originally produced for the interdisciplinary journal Formations, Marie Yate’s The Time and the Energy 1982, is re-activated in a new exhibition format. The work examines the relationship between image and text and the experience of filmic pleasure, alongside the pleasure of narrative and the reconstruction of reality.

The collaborative work of artists James Tylor and Laura Wills’ project, The Forgotten Wars, seeks to decolonise the history of the Australian Frontier wars; a series of armed conflicts, massacres, and battles that took place from 1788 to 1930 between the invading British Government and Aboriginal Australians. Through the layering of drawings of colonial era maps and documents directly onto photographic prints of the contemporary rural landscape, their work disrupts representations of Australian cultural identity and encompasses historical and contemporary techniques from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives.

Trafficking the Earth is a collaboration between photographers Xavier Ribas, Ignacio Acosta and an art historian, Louise Purbrick. Their collective and continuing research, under the heading Traces of Nitrate, has documented the movement of mineral wealth of Chile into global markets and European landscapes. Nitrate and copper is their focus. The transformation of these natural resources into industrial materials draw desert and city, slag heap and country house, ruin and regeneration, landscape and archive, Chile and Britain, into the same circuit of global capital.

Pio Abad’s 105 Degrees and Rising appropriates two Vietnam War era visual references, the ERDL camouflage pattern that was developed and used by the US military and an infamous 1976 pin-up poster image of Farrah Fawcett, which are synthesised into a wallpaper design and shown at a domestic scale. Shown with a single black and white photograph from the artist’s personal archive, 1986 II, taken in the lavish palatial home of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos on the day of their removal from power, the works merge personal narrative and cultural iconography and reveals the far-reaching impact of US global policy still felt today.

A constellation of David Birkin’s work is used to highlight inabilities of seeing through political acts of censorship and metaphorical blindness. At the centre of this critical approach to thinking is I Was So Entranced Seeing That I Did Not Think About the Sight, 2012; a work inspired by the deaf-blind activist Helen Keller, a figure who embodied a sensitivity to divisions and social enclosures. The selection of works extracts the cultural and political significance within definitions of the colour blue and includes a new series of cyanotypes, Midnight Blue, created in dialogue with material from documentary filmmaker and founder of Reprieve, Paul Hamann.

Susan Schuppli’s film, Can The Sun Lie?, is a question posed in a landmark 1886 US court case, where photographs were first used as legal evidence, and is reanimated by current climate change debates in relation to Canadian Inuit navigation and storytelling traditions. Schuppli explores the long standing dispute between lay knowledge and scientific expertise, and claims to truth that depend upon the material evidence of nature.

In a new iteration of the installation hollow tongues, the collective (play)ground-less speculate upon the mediation of images and hierarchies of vision in relation to 3D imaging technologies, specifically real-time rendering game engines, and immersive forms of experience. The merging of the real, or the exhibition space, and Virtual Reality is harnessed as a tool for shared seeing and participation.

Glyth, a series of digitally altered collages on family photographs by Larry Achiampong references a colonial (mis)representation of blackness that has the potential to be forgotten. The motif of the ‘cloudface’, which has frequently appeared in Achiampong’s work as an interrogation of colonial imagery, also functions as a form of avatar that speaks of alienation, repression and otherness, as well as the possibilities offered by gaming platforms and Live Action Role Play as ways to build relationships and communities both on and offline.