Shadows
...and understanding my own work
Last week, in the wind, rain and clouds, I started in earnest the making of new body of work, spread across Europe over the next 2 or 3 years, and as I looked down into my camera’s viewfinder, I searched out the connection, breathing, waiting for what I feel is the right moment to press the shutter and imprint a history onto it’s own square piece of film.
Last month, at A Bigger Book Fair at Peckham 24, I found myself in countless conversations about my work across the table, with my books and zines laid out in front of me.
What I found, for the first time in fact in 20 years, was a real ease in talking not just about individual books I have made, but my work in general.
It can take a long time to gain the words to express your own overall work fluently (I hope) rather than talking about a single body of work. I have always known the links of course but I think it is my recent zines that have provided me this clarity.
Discussing the photographs that connect the bodies of work, one to another and all together.
What I see in my work are the shadows left behind by history, whether the past or very recent. The imprints we create and leave behind, both through individual acts of kindness and mass atrocity.
Can the landscapes in which I make this work contain these past events? Can it give us pointers and give up what it holds? How much context do we need to bring to a place to be able to understand it? How much emotion can be gotten from the place itself…does the very ground slowly exhale it’s history.
Over the 30 plus countries I have made work in, the hundreds of locations and the connecting journeys to them.
Fields, ditches, mass graves, factories, football pitches, riverbanks and forests. The shadows of past events ground into the very earth and fabric of our lives.
Thank you as ever for reading and your support of my work.
My best wishes and please, take care of yourself.
Marc
Best of luck with the new work, which I look forward to. I guess it is always thrilling at the outset of a new project to have everything ahead of you, with a clear idea about what the project is about but accepting that the work itself will probably push into areas that perhaps you didn't expect at the outset.
Totally agree with what Keith wrote, be prepared for the unexpected. I’m on a huge project and I know it will zig zag and opportunities will pop up. You put the energy in and new energy will pour in and lead you by the hand.