"Documentary, and yet somehow experimental: each a different perspective, a different experience. Take a journey down the road, right here. Mind the paintwork, and watch out for cars,"
That was the sign posted above our exhibition for the Southbourne crossroads projects, summarising the work produced by the class when told to go out and document the local area. The work produced resulted in a diverse range of outcomes, from photobooks, videos, maps and more. The brief for this project was inspired by the Tintype gallery "Essex road" projects. The basis of the project was to go out into the local area, in this case Southbourne crossroads, and document it in some way to produce an outcome. A key part of this was to try and keep it "everyday", or try to avoid making an obvious political statement. For this project I decided to use screenshots taken from google maps to document the area, taking screenshots of places I thought interesting in some way. The idea sprang from starting to use maps to plan where I would take photos, labelling interesting spots to visit, but then using screenshots instead became the focus. Part of the reason I wanted to use screenshots for my project was because it showed the accessibility, that is offered by computers, of the local area. I was able to "go inside" of certain areas without having to confront or approach a person about it, which made it easy. I filled the brief, to go out and take photos, without ever having to leave the classroom. |
I've included this work on this site because it links very closely to my themes of exploration and discovery, and uncovering details about a place.