Photography & Resilience: by Jeremy Alvarez

I was born in a very small city, more like a town, in the Southern Philippines. I grew up on a farm and later moved to the capital, Manila. I work at a digital bank, handling their app. I actually do not know how I got this job three years ago. My degree is in Behavioural Sciences, which focuses on social systems. I’m looking for more creative opportunities, but everything offered me so far leads to yet another bank.

I started doing photography when I was in a very small high school in Manila. There were photography classes offered, and you were required to take them. The first semester was about basics, and we did a lot of shots on jeepneys. Jeepneys are basically vehicles left over from World War II. They are a cultural symbol in the Philippines, open air vans like a bus or truck, painted in all kinds of colours and symbols.

I didn't really get into photography until 2015. I went to the States for a month to see friends. We drove down Highway One in Northern California. It’s along the coast. At one point we stopped at a cliff looking directly into the Pacific Ocean. Everything was in Northern California colours--deep browns and dark greens. Watching the waves crashing to the shore, I realised: ‘I need a camera’. Back home, I immediately bought myself a cheap Pentax. My godfather, a professional photographer for years, took me under his wings for a while. I learnt more about photography from him than I had in my classes.

When I am hired to do a ‘photoshoot’, I use my digital camera because it’s practical. Film photography, though, forces me to be in the moment. As an anxious person, I value this quality. Most of my shots are candid, taken on walks with friends. My personal projects are on film. With analogue photography, you don't see the results right away, so it adds preciousness to the viewing. When you print out the photos, it means more than it does with digital photography.

Overall, the reason I like photography has less to do with the image and more to do with the story of the image. It’s why I like photographing people. As human beings, we’re drawn to one another's stories. I’d rather shoot a portrait of someone I know because their story is familiar, and I can empathise with what they’re feeling. Merging images with writing, putting a face to the words, is what I enjoy. Writing and photography work well together. Lately I’ve been playing around with personal projects that combine the two. I do portraits of people who have helped me through very dark periods of my life, explaining through words what they mean to me and showing their faces in the photographs.

Artwork by Noga Shatz

I usually just start working in my studio, using what’s available in the space. I begin with drawing and painting, experimenting with materials; I like to create monotype prints in my studio, without using a presser. It results in making drumming sounds which I see as part of the process/rituals. The beauty of working inter or multi disciplinary is that the work informs you what medium best serves. I don’t decide in advance.

I have an idea of what I want to explore beforehand. Then I see what arises in the studio. My research is studio based. The work in the studio generates the research itself. From that process, images or experimentation with materials takes place, which I later explore in depth on my computer. I trace and explore the origins, cultural heritage, popular uses of these images, and how they are linked to me. And then I try things out from a more informed perspective. I then experiment further to see what medium is best for that particular work.

It’s a process, and I keep myself open for surprises. Plans are often fragile, dynamic.

I mainly work with printing and painting, but sometimes I think the work needs sound too. I’m also a musician. And sometimes, instead of painting on the walls or canvas, the piece can be a sculpture or an installation. I like to keep those two worlds separate. Sometimes they link naturally, but I don’t set out to do that. My paintings have a lot of rhythms and sounds, a kind of relationship to music without sound.

I’m interested in pieces that are distorted. Distortion is a key word for me in both music and visual art. This translates to studio work using materials which go against one another, manipulating material in an unconventional way. For example: my work “ Handkerchief”xx is a monoprint made of tissue paper. The paper is fragile yet I am sculpting with it. That goes against the nature of the material. This is an example of how I use --and abuse --the materials.

Gülce Tulçalı Reviews Two London Exhibitions

British Espionage & Male Homosexuality: Ungentle

Huw Lemmey in collaboration with Onyeka Igwe

Studio Voltaire is a hidden oasis in busy Clapham Common. Renovated in 2021, the space functions as both artist studios and a gallery along with a limited edition shop: House of Voltaire.

As visitors navigate through the multifunctional space, the gallery presents a black curtain dividing work and outer reality. A gentle narrator’s voice is heard through the walls.

Ungentle is filmed entirely on 16mm and is on a continuous loop between 10am to 5 pm, Wednesday to Sunday, at Studio Voltaire’s Gallery space. Watching the film, the audience experiences a sense of ‘spying’ on busy streets, calm countryside picturesques and historically significant places of the espionage. The protagonist directs the entire film from outside the camera lens, making the camera itself a pair of binoculars. As the narrator softly continues, one gets the sense of an intimate conversation with someone about something not so secret.

The film preserves a conversational sincerity throughout ,despite the critical themes it touches on such as: imperialism and sex. As described by the gallery, “It moves from St James’s Park, a historical cruising ground at the center of British power, to Beaulieu, a historic country house in Hampshire that served as a Special Operations Executive training school, and its surrounding countryside.”

More information can be found here.

Ungentle can be seen in Studio Voltaire until January 8th 2023.

Insomnia

by Leah Clements

Leah Clements’ new work INSOMNIA transports the viewer to 3 in the morning, no matter what time you visit the exhibition. Inspired by the artist’s own sleep paralysis and insomnia, South Kiosk hosts the artist’s first photographic solo exhibition. Curated by Marianna Lemos, visitors are placed in a setting with big linen sheets and a bright blue carpet serving like a body of water underneath. Purple and green lights come through the photos, and doors from the photos open to hallways with an uncomfortable sensation of stuckness. Objects are thrown out of time, stuck in a state between wakefulness and sleep, moving but not going anywhere. Clement’s work is informed by this in-between state, where mind and body exist in a parallel world. Her world resembles reality, but simultaneously, space, time and the body are compromised. The photographs suggest time that moves at an irregular pace, a space that appears disproportionate to its dimensions and a body stripped from its regular functions.

The exhibition is accompanied by a sound piece with image descriptions. The viewer is given gentle suggestions as to how to navigate the space. The installation is produced so as to be accessible. From the gallery brochure: “Leah Clements’ practice includes performance, installation, writing and film to develop a language of chronic illness and disability.”

The exhibition can be seen at South Kiosk until 29 January 2023. There is a public programme with talks, workshops and in-person live events.

More information here: https://southkiosk.com/Current