All posts tagged: Home & Away

The OpenWalls 2019 shortlist has been announced

Last year marked the first call for photographers to apply for OpenWalls, an international award series that creates opportunities for emerging and established photographers to exhibit their work in prestigious locations around the globe. Naturally, the first OpenWalls stop is Arles, where, for a month each year, the leading names in photography descend on the city for Les Rencontres d’Arles – the world’s foremost photography festival. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the festival. To celebrate, 50 shortlisted and 3 finalist OpenWalls photographers will exhibit their work as part of a month-long group show at Galerie Huit Arles throughout July. Responding to the theme Home & Away, each of the images conjure a powerful and varied sense of place, incorporating themes of belonging, escapism and identity. Comprising photography of many forms –from portraiture and landscape to fine art and conceptual photography – the exhibition includes the works of Brazilian photographer Diego Fabra, and Alma Haser, whose selected photograph Razan seeks to convey the psychological damage of a seven year old girl, who has been …

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2019-05-21T11:12:25+01:00

Meet this month’s OpenWalls Editor’s Pick photographer, Gustavo Tavares

Sarah Roberts

Gustavo Tavares has spent many years exploring the arctic, photographing the landscapes as a way to understand the climate’s harshness, and the relationship between man and nature. For Gustavo, the arctic embodies a fractured sense of home. It is not where he lives, but where he finds his spiritual and emotional balance, calling into question what actually defines our notion of home. His OpenWalls Editor’s Pick photograph is an image taken in Pyramiden, an abandoned Soviet coal mining city, with a population of just six people. Gustavo is based in Aveiro, Portugal, a colourful town set along the Ria de Aveiro lagoon, often described as the Venice of Portugal – a far cry from the sparseness, and coldness, of Pyramiden. But these deserted, freezing landscapes are where Gustavo finds his sense of belonging. We spoke to Gustavo about his father’s photographic influence, protecting himself from polar bears, and his series ‘La Camera du Flaneur’, a project inspired by the words of Susan Sontag. Can you tell me about your background as a photographer? How and …

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2018-08-23T16:48:07+01:00

OpenWalls Home & Away: How does sense of place impact your work?

Sarah Roberts

For our very first OpenWalls award, we are inviting both emerging and established photographers, from all over the world, to submit work responding to the theme ‘Home & Away’. Up to 50 photographers will then be selected to exhibit their photographs as part of a group exhibition at Galerie Huit Arles in July 2019, to coincide with the 50th edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles. The theme of the exhibition, ‘Home & Away’, is open to interpretation. We want to see images that capture a sense of belonging, escapism or identity, and play with notions of home or freedom. Do you find your inspiration at home, by photographing your loved ones, or do you seek inspiration further afield? For one of our featured photographers, Brandon Dare, home is at the heart of all his work. “There is a lot of emotion to be found in your home environment, in one way or another,” he explains, “through the people there, or shared memories of either sad or happy times.” Brandon’s projects have so far explored a range …

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2018-08-13T16:40:18+01:00

OpenWalls: Christopher Bethell on his complex relationship to home

Sarah Roberts

Christopher Bethell’s work comes from a desire to explore his identity, making his personal reflections universal. His complex relationship to home comes from his dual American and British citizenship. Despite never having visited America, he has always thought of it as a home, and so embarked on his major MA project, The Duke of Earl, last year in the US, as a way to document his understanding of this new but familiar place. What followed was a struggle between cliche and authenticity, as Christopher came to terms with the stereotypes that had informed his perception of this fractured home. Christopher’s interest in photography was first sparked at the age of 19, and he quickly threw himself into the medium, studying at Mid Cheshire College, Staffordshire University, and finally at London College of Communication, where he received a Masters in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. He cites his most valuable lessons as those about the foundations of photographic theory, and the ethics of representation, which have changed the way he approaches projects and commissions. Since graduating he …

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2018-08-08T15:56:10+01:00

OpenWalls Arles: Nicholas White explains the relationship between his camera and his surroundings

Sarah Roberts

Nicholas White is based on Dartmoor National Park, where he pursues projects that examine our relationship with our landscape, and the way we interact with our natural spaces. Since graduating from Plymouth College of Art several years ago, Nicholas’ work has been featured in a number of publications, including British Journal of Photography. He has been commended as Landscape Photographer of the Year, has won positions on two Magnum Photos workshops, and has been shortlisted for the World Photography Organisation ZEISS Photography Award for his project ‘Black Dots’. A portrait from the project has also been shortlisted for this year’s Portrait of Britain exhibition. Nicholas’ interest in nature informs all of his work, taking him away from his familiar surroundings, into bothies dotted around the UK, and now to the Southern Carpathian Mountains of Romania, where he is documenting a new European Wilderness Reserve. We spoke to Nicholas about his work away from home, in light of our OpenWalls theme, ‘Home & Away’. How did you get into photography and how has your background influenced your approach? All of my …

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2018-08-03T17:06:05+01:00

Exhibit your work in Arles, to coincide with Les Rencontres d’Arles 2019

Sarah Roberts

Since its inception in 1970, Les Rencontres d’Arles has been a major influence in disseminating the best of world photography, becoming a springboard for photographic and contemporary creative talents. Taking place in Arles, South of France, Les Rencontres d’Arles is set among the town’s crumbling Roman treasures, shady squares and bountiful pockets of Camarguais culture. Immortalised in hundreds of Van Gogh’s works, Arles has always inspired artistic sentiment.The festival plays on this, hosting exhibitions across its much-loved, instantly recognisable heritage sites, with 12th-century chapels and 19th-century industrial buildings transforming into bustling photographic stages. Now in its 49th year, Les Rencontres d’Arles promises a breathtaking, celestial photographic journey that looks to the past while facing the future. Acknowledging photography’s unique position to reveal hard truths, Sam Stourdzé, director of the festival, writes of how “photography is often the best-placed medium for registering all the shocks that remind us the world is changing, sometimes right before our eyes.” The series of exhibitions relate to formative events that have taken place throughout the last century, seeking to parallel …

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2018-07-02T11:23:04+01:00

Galerie Huit Arles: If Walls Could Talk

Sarah Roberts

Situated within a late 17th century mansion, in the historical centre of the UNESCO world heritage site of Arles, lies Galerie Huit Arles, which has been at the heart of the town’s photography scene since its inception in 2007. This is no mean feat. The small Provencal town is home to Les Rencontres d’Arles, the world’s first and foremost photography festival. The doors of the gallery open onto a neo-classical salon, its painted and gilded panels displaying a changing selection of modern photographs, before moving across a series of artfully decorated rooms, stylistically spanning several centuries. Julia de Bierre, Galerie Huit Arles’ owner, founder and curator, has always ensured she exhibits an array of high-profile works on the gallery walls. Soon after opening, she presented the V&A Museum’s Theatre Department exhibition of photographer Simon Annand’s ‘The Half’. She has shown a number of photographic installations, including that of Matthias Olmeta in the below-stair vaults, and series such as Clementine Schneidermann’s ‘I called her Lisa Marie’, and Vee Speers’ 2017 ‘Dystopia’ show. The gallery’s artist-in-residence programme …

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2018-09-04T11:59:36+01:00

Announcing OpenWalls, Your Invitation to Arles

Sarah Roberts

“Hosting OpenWalls is an exciting opportunity to create an outstanding curated exhibition in an unusual setting,” says Julia de Bierre, who is opening up the walls of her internationally renowned gallery, Galerie Huit Arles, to exhibit 50 shortlisted images for a month in July 2019. Launching to coincide with the 50th edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles, the world’s first and foremost photographic festival, OpenWalls is an awards initiative that gives emerging and established photographers the chance to exhibit in reputable locations around the world. For our first exhibition we are inviting work responding to the theme ‘Home & Away’, with the aim being to capture a sense of belonging, escapism, or identity. “I hope that the response to the theme will reflect all the qualities, and possibly contradictions, of British Journal of Photography’s readership,” says Julia. Which are? “Talented, informed, curious, conventional, cutting-edge, international or home-grown, and numerous!” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Galerie Huit Arles is located in the centre of Arles. Once used as a remarkable 17th century mansion, its classical …

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2018-09-25T11:12:42+01:00

BJP Staff