Tag: Contextual Research

PHO705: Quiet protests

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , , Leave a comment

“To value photography as art is not however to denigrate photography in the service of different ends. We owe a debt to the cameramen who worked in Vietnam, for example. Photographs like theirs encourage us to resist what evil it may be in our power to correct.” [Adams 71:1996] 

Do environmental photographers, such as Edward Burtynsky and George Steinmetz produce meaningful images of protest or works of art that offer the viewer a means of escape? When looking at images of fauna in their natural habitats I find myself asking this question. By the simple act of exhibiting images in a gallery we now longer see them as referents for the evils of the world but art, and in doing so they lose their truth value. 

Steinmetz a photographer for the New York Times and National Geographic, who concerns himself with the subjects of remote landscapes, climate change, and humanity’s ever increasing need for food. Steinmetz’s practice is dominated by his aerial photography of grand landscapes, manufactured land, or agriculture in action.  The impact of which one first viewing may appear picturesque, abstract or alien but rarely disturbing. More impactful and immediate are Steimetz’s images we see from inside industrial complexes or farm facilities, workers in action or live stock in distress (figure 2). The presence of humans and their involvement in the distress of other, brings home the reality and truth value of the photograph. Without the accompanying text the aerial landscape do not hold the same weight as those that are more environmentally engaged, the obvious human intervention on the landscape or brutality towards livestock. There are two sides to Steinetz’s work, a disjoint, that of the commercial and the concerned.  

Figure 1 Rice field in China, George Steinmetz
Figure 2 Poultry workers “Feed the planet”, George Stienmetz

Meanwhile Edward Burtynsky offers us a more abstract of the world around us, as his concern for the world we are leaving behind us is that of a stripped landscape. These images offer us a alternative view of the world, something alien and yet there is something familiar. There is no question here that these are not photographs of protest, they do not shout at the viewer. What they do is offer the view the space to reflect, to stop and think. I his own words Burtynsky reflects on the impact of globalism and the needs of humankind: 

“But all these things have one thing in common, which is that this is the world that is necessary – in the background, humming away – to allow us to live the lives we do. When you buy that new thing, where does it come from? And where does it go when you’ve thrown it away? Because there’s no such place as away” [Burtynsky in Davies 701:2020] 

Figure 3 Uralkali Potash Mine #4, Russia Edward Burtynsky
Figure 4 Phosphorus Tailings Pond, Edward Burtynsky
Figure 5 Saw Mills #5, Lagos Edward Burtynsky

The work of Burtynsky reminds me of what Robert Adams states, in his essay “Photographing evil”: 

“Art can convincingly speak through form for significance bears upon the problem of nihilism and is socially constructive. Restated, photography as art does address evil, but it does so broadly as it works to convince us of life’s value; the darkness that art combats is the ultimate one, the conclusion that life is without worth and finally better of ended.” [Adams 70:1996] 

What makes for a greater impact when gazing on environmental photographs, landscapes, is when there is human presence. This give a scale to the thing; we can see and compare our reality against what we are being shown. Within my own practice the familiar landscape of vernacular buildings are used as metaphor for socioeconomic discord. I do not show off Bath’s grand Georgian architecture but the homes of the people who service the city and the millions who visit. When viewed I know that this is not art but documentary, it is a quiet kind of protest. 

Figure 6 “Not our Prime Minister” 2021 Tim Beale

References 

Adams, R “Beauty in photography” 1996 Aperture 

Davies, L “Edward Burtynsky” The journal of The Royal Photographic Society Nov/Dec 2020 Vol 160/No.9 

Images 

Figure 1 Steinmetz, G  “The terraced Yuanyang rice fields in Yunnan province, China” https://www.canon-europe.com/pro/stories/george-steinmetz-storytelling-aerial-photography/ 

 Figure 2 Steinmetz, G “Feed the planet” https://georgesteinmetz.photoshelter.com/gallery/Feed-the-Planet/G0000lrER6EZBBQA/ 

Figure 3 Burtynsky, E  “Uralkali Potash Mine #4, Russia” 2017 https://www.format.com/magazine/features/photography/edward-burtynsky-photography-anthropocene-project 

Figure 4 Burtynsky, E “Phosphorus Tailings Pond, Florida” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/15/edward-burtynsky-photography-interview 

Figure 5 Burtynsky, E “Saw Mills #1, Lagos” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/edward-burtynskys-epic-landscapes 

Figure 6 Beale, T “Not our Prime Minister” from The Right to this City series, 2021

PHO705: Typologies in Topography  

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , Leave a comment

Three by five, three by four, three by two, five by six, these are but a few of the grid like combinations of images presented in the body of work called “Typologies” by Bernd & Hilla Beche that spans some four decades. Documenting the structures that sit within an industrial landscape like monolithic sculptures, the Becher’s ability to remove the often overlooked from its setting and place it down onto paper is in itself a work of art.   

Figure 1 “Typologies” 2014 Bernd & Hilla Becher

“The Becher’s technical rigor is also exemplary, the strength of their work owing to their consistency of framing and evenness of the light on their subjects. The simplicity of their practical approach-and that of the other photographers from the ’New topographies’ exhibition-has endured within landscape practice as well as within other spheres of contemporary photography.”[Alexander 128:2015] 

The concept of typologies within the medium of photography is not a new one, but is one that has been used to great effect especially when looking at the work of the likes of  Ed Ruscha. Ruscha uses the everyday, mundane and bland within bodies of work such as ‘Every building on the sunset strip’ as a method to create flow and a sense of movement as the viewer is transported along the strip, move from image to image as one would drive from building to building. However the way in which the Becher’s deliver their images is much more static, rigidly controlled, placed into grids, edited to emphasis the familiar, whilst allowing the viewer to consider the contrasts between each structure. 

Figure 2 “Every building on the Sunset Strip” 1965 Ed Ruscha

“After all, Bernd and Hilla Becher are not interested in the individual photo, but above all in what their way of seeing, restrictively defined in its way, actually makes possible, namely a comparison of appliance-like structures of a particular type, such as gasometer , halls and silos.” [Zweite in Becher 15:2014] 

It is not only the finished image that is controlled so to are the subjects, not so much the staging or composing of each structure but rather the construction. Each photograph is meticulously planned, the time of day, weather conditions, elevation of camera, and position of structure within the frame.  

“We precisely did not show pictures that we had composed but instead images that were already composed. We simply selected objects that could be captured and were thus there for the taking.” [Becher 7:2014] 

Discussing the “New Topographic: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” (1975) exhibition, which featured Bernd and Hilla Becher’s ‘Topologies’, Jesse Alexander states: 

“Just as the subject matter in the photographs was commonly considered mundane or bland, the visual qualities of the photographs were simple and unembellished and were met by traditionalists with skepticism and perplexity.” [Alexander 127:2015] 

Figure 3 “The right to this city” 2021 Tim Beale

Within my own practice the use of typologies has been a useful tool to illustrate the uniformity of publicly funded social housing of the 1930s and 40s. To ensure each image created, for the topology series, had a uniform appearance I had to set several control factors. Each image needed to be taken during the same weather conditions, framed within the same space, and using the same camera setting such as f stop and aperture. This was particularly challenging give Bath’s topography, being built in a valley, many of its houses are built running along steep hills. Shooting straight on with a wide-angle lens gave me the best option to create uniformity with each photograph. The use of repeated images of mundane dwellings worked well for the series of early social housing but less so for more contemporary housing stock. As such, I chose to only adopt this method for a few typologies through the book “The right to this city”.  

References 

Alexander, Jesse “Perspectives on place: Theory and practice in landscape photography” 2015 Bloomsbury 

Becher, Bernd & Hilla “Typologies” introduction by Armin Zweite 2014 edition MIT Press 

https://www.photopedagogy.com/typologies.html [Accessed 30.10.2021] 

Images

Figure 1 Becher, Bernd & Hilla “Typologies”

Figure 2 Ruscha, Ed “Every building on the Sunset Strip” 1965

Figure 3 Beale, Tim “The right to this city” 2021

PHO705: Photographs of an unequal Britain  

Posted on Posted in PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , Leave a comment

Photography in Britain in period between the late 60s to late 80s was one of protest and drive for change in a dystopian landscape created by endemic poverty and increasing inequalities in housing. Political upheaval during this time resulted in increased unemployment as a result of the privatising of publicly owned businesses and closing down of factories and coal mines. Charities such as Shelter and the Child Poverty Action Group worked tirelessly to raise awareness and funds to help those who were homeless, unemployed or living in substandard conditions. The director of the Child Poverty Action Group, wrote: 

“If civilised life is to continue, the rich must strike a new social contract with the poor to the extent of breaking the cycle of inequality.” [Field in Stacey 68:2020] 

Exit Photography Group (Exit) 

From 1974 the group was made up of the self-taught photographers, Paul Trevor, Nicholas Battye, and Chris Steele-Perkins. At that time Battye worked as a security guard at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the foundation funded the first half of the groups six-year survey of Britains inner cities,’Survival Programmes: In Britain’s inner cities’ [1982]. Exit had a keen desire to use photography to make a difference, key to this was their continual presence in amongst the communities they engaged with. The group would often revisit inner cities location with their prints to share with the people living their. As Trevor recalls: 

“People asked us for prints, and we gave them our reject prints and then we couldn’t give enough prints away, so we agreed to do an exhibition. There was an annual festival, E1 Festival, and we made the prints. I had to sneak into Regent Street Polytechnic, as it then was, because we didn’t have a dark room.” [Trevor in Stacey 71:2020] 

Exit were ever conscious of the politic of representation and often praised for their commitment to the groups ability to honestly represent the people in their photography, by having a policy of naming those in the photographs but of not crediting the individual photography generated praise from within the photographic community. The ‘Down Wapping’ project highlighted the way in which private and commercial development in the area damaged the community and further exacerbated unemployment. The project draw the attention of national press such as the Sunday Times and British Journal of Photography, this attention elevated the group’s presence which in turn enabled them to continue to produce projects of protest against Britain’s inequalities. The group worked closely with the East End Docklands Action Group to highlight the perceived destruction of a local community.  

 “To put this into context, redevelopment of London docklands generated fierce political debate between the Conservatives, who favoured private funding to develop the area for commercial purposes and provide private housing, and the Labour Party, which wanted state funding used to create public housing and employment opportunities for the existing community.” [Stacey 71:2020] 

  • Chris Family Glasgow 1975
  • Survival Programme: In Britain’s inner cities 1974-82
  • Garment Workers London 1979
Figure 1 Exit Photography Group 1974-82

Nick Hedges 

The work of Nick Hedges images from Birmingham in the early 70’s holds a special connection for me, as my early childhood memories are of my time living in Birmingham. I recall whole streets of boarded up terraced housing, awaiting demolition, how a handful of friends lived in the one or two remaining households in those streets. I also recall playing in abandoned houses, finding evidence of drug use, plastic bags of glue, used needles and empty pill bottles. These things were just part of life and we just didn’t question it. One of my earliest memories was visiting the factory where my dad worked, not unlike the factories featured in Hedges’ photographs, however, not long after that visit my dad, along with many others, was laid off as the factory fell victim to the politically driven economic turmoil the country faced.  

Talking at the Bristol BOP21 festival Hedges described how photography in the past (1960-1990’s for example) held much more power than today as we now view images with much more suspicion. As such the photobooks and pamphlets from those times can act as a way to revisit and reflect upon the past, helping to inform the present, as I find myself doing now.  

Growing up seeing the growing inequalities in Britain has informed my practice, as for these earlier photographers, I want to use photography to raise these issues, to bring to the fore the struggle not only faced by the poor but also by the working class. The evidence of this inequality can be seen in the very fabric of the city, the suburb, and town. Government policies have altered the environment we live and work in, the size and density of living space, the infrastructure, and the use of a city. Government has monetised, privatised and perverted our right to live and thrive in the places we want to live in. Much of what the likes of Exit and Nick Hedges, and many other photographers, have done to highlight these issues has created a narrative of social dystopia that has built and led to the current crisis we face in the form of housing and Brexit.  

  • Girl working in the Lee Howl pump factory
  • Bromsgrove 1968 image for shelter
  • Mother and her family, Winson Green, Birmingham 1972
Figure 2 Birmingham 1968-72 Nick Hedges

References  

Stacey, Noni “Photography of Protest and Community: The radical collectives of the 1970s” 2020 Lund Humphries 

https://photoworks.org.uk/exit-photography-group/ [Accessed 30.10.2021]  

Survival Programmes

https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/mother-and-her-family-winson-green-birmingham [Accessed 30.10.2021] 

http://www.nickhedgesphotography.co.uk/ [Accessed 30.10.2021] 

Nick Hedges in conversation with Martin Parr, “BOP21 Festival” RPS House, 23.10.2021  

Images 

Figure 1 – Exit Photography Group images from “Down in Wapping” 1975 “Survival Programme: In Britain’s inner cities” Nick Battye, Chris Steele-Perkins, Paul Trevor 1974-82

Figure 2 Nick Hedges images from Birmingham between 1968 and 1972

PHO705: Photography and the city 

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , Leave a comment
Fig 1 “Untitled” Tim Beale 2021

The very nature of photography lends itself to the documentation of the city, its structure, people and essence. Whether it comes from psychogeography or documentary the form of capturing a two dimensional representation of the space around us is one that is familiar, from the Parisian scenes of Eugene Atget to the bustling streets of Riccardo Magherini’s Hong Kong. The photograph provides a document of social, cultural and political concepts of the city. 

“Photographs display attitudes, agency and vision in the way a city is documented and imagined.” [Tormey xiv: 2013] 

  • Fig 2 “Rue de la Montagne Sainte Genevieve” Eugene Atget 1924
  • Fi3 “Tsim Sha Tsui” HK series Riccardo_Magherini

The city is a social space, dominated by city structures that effect they way people live, interact and form social communities. Within my own practice I concentrate on the evolution of the city and how social and political changes influence the evolution of the manufactured space. Highlighting Urban and Suburban issues to engage and encourage cultural, social and political discussion. Framing and rendering the three dimensional city, in a two dimensional representation that conveys its culture, society, emotion and aesthetics.  

“Photographs can celebrate or critique presiding ideology and privilege. More specifically focused views can adopt metaphoric frames that serve to emphasise particular aspects of experience: the ‘institutional city’ and the place of power; the ‘everyday city’ of the street; the city of social practice or the site of diaspora’; the ‘hybrid or global city’; the ‘engendered city’; the ‘network’ or psysogeographic. Just as the city can be theorised in different ways, so it can be presented photographically in different ways: geographically – describing the evidence of its economies in the buildings and infrastructure; anthropologically in describing evidence of its culture; sociologically in describing examples of interaction.” [Tormey 26:2013] 

I am trying to convey an unexaggerated portrayal of the everyday city and its suburbs, the dwelling places of the everyday worker. The structures that create a city are also the structures that shape and define the people who live in them. As such, my practice concentrates on the simplest of dwellings, the mundane or overlooked. These spaces are no less important than the grand stately homes, treasured by the nation, in fact they are of greater importance as they are a fixed point of reference when we map social and political history.  When we look at these dwellings we start to see, not only, the decay but also the pride and sense of community. There is something about a common struggle that brings people together, reading the details in a home can tell this story. As with Robert Adams photographs that featured in the exhibition “New Topographic: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” there is a simplest style and beauty to be read in these images.  

Fig 4 “Denver, Colorado” Robert Adams 1970

When we look at his photograph “Denver, Colorado” we see a dwelling, in the early evening as the sky is not fully dark, we can see there is a light on so can assume the home is occupied. We are also given a clue that there are children given the presence of the swing set. We only see a section of the dwelling but it is clear this is a single storey building, no fence delineates a front or back garden, in fact there appear to be no boundaries between properties. We can then imagine that this is not the home of wealthy occupants.  

As photographers we strive to tell stories in our two-dimensional images, we create seeds that we then plant into the minds of the viewer. Reducing a city down to a flat image of dwellings, challenges the viewer to create a mind map of the city, to follow the trail, join the dots and engage with the space presented by the photographer. This is what I aim to achieve in photographing the city.  

References 

Tormey, Jane “Cities and photography” Abingdon : Routledge 2013 

Images 

Figure 1 “Untitled” Tim Beale 2021

Figure 2 Eugene Atget https://www.moma.org/artists/229 

Figure 3 Riccardo Magherini “HK” http://www.riccardomagherini.com/fineart/portfolio/hk-series/ 

Figure 4 Robert Adams “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape”  (1975) https://www.pierremm.com/architecture-photographer/architecture-photography-famous-artists.php 

PHO705: Homeownership

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , Leave a comment
Fig 1 Tim Beale ‘Untitled’ 2021

Lately I have been going down the rabbit hole of fonts and book layouts creating the bones of my book. However, a productive one to one with my project supervisor offered a chance to come up for air and to do a little research into what other photographers are doing and how.  

Revisiting the work of Alejandro Cartagena’s and in particular the book ‘A small guide to homeownership’ is a useful view of how a book can be constructed with a less formal way. Cartagena has crammed thirteen years of work into this book, including fragmented cities, which for me was, in part, inspiration for this project. The use of contemporary images set against kitsch vintage imagery, alongside the books text, offer the viewer immediate linkage to the idea of home and domesticity. The use of colour and black and white photography is used to identify the difference between historical, research images and Cartagena’s own photographs. This method only become apparent when properly viewing the book.  

Fig 2 Alejandro Cartagena ‘ A small guide to homeownership’ 2020

Within my own practice I draw upon many forms of research; historical documents, such as plans, tenders and contracts, research papers, books, and social media posts. Each have their own identity and as such I want to be able to show this in my work, this could simply be the use of the same font or layout to matching paper stock. Likewise, the positioning of text with photographs plays a key role, does the text sit above or below the image? Is this format too stale? The text I plan to use for this body of work is taken from the government English Housing reports, which links past housing policies with hard facts about our current housing conditions.  

Fig 3 Tim Beale ‘The right to this city’ 2021 and research

Looking at a few of the books produced by Hoxton press from photographers such as Chris Dorley Brown’s ‘Corners’ and Sophie Harris-Taylor’s ‘Sister’ in which each book adopts a similar format of placing the text on the facing page. This very simplistic style looks clean and contemporary as apposed to the ‘text book’ style of picture with text below, which would work well with the majority of the formal image text.

Fig 4 Chris Dorley-Brown ‘The Corners’ 2018
Fig 5 Sophie Harris-Taylor ‘Sisters’ by 2017

References  

Fig 1 Tim Beale 2021 ‘Untitled’ from The right to this city

Fig 2 Alejandro Cartagena ‘ A small guide to homeownership’ 2020 https://tienda.alejandrocartagena.com/product/a-small-guide-to-homeownership/ [Accessed 10.10.2021]

Fig 3 Tim Beale 2021: Mock up for handbound book and research on books

Fig 4 Chris Dorley-Brown ‘The Corners’ 2018https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/collections/books/products/the-corners [Accessed 10.10.2021]

Fig 5 Sophie Harris-Taylor ‘Sisters’ by 2017 https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/collections/books/products/sisters [Accessed 10.10.2021]

PHO705: Photobooks

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , Leave a comment

The process of thinking and planning a photobook has been daunting, from the editing of photos to types of paper. There is a real risk of losing site of what the photobook is for. What purpose does it serve? As Bruce Ceschel states in his manifesto “ Self publish be happy”: 

“ Think about the visceral pleasure of making a book, rather than being preoccupied with publishing something that will make money. Nor should you think about making something that will be selected for the next best-of list, propelling you into stardom. Making a book should be both challenging and fun. It should be an adventure that will make you aware of your own practice, ideas, knowledge, and skills. An adventure that might lead to creating something great – or not, which is alos OK, so long as the journey was worthwhile.” [Caschel 2015:486] 

Taking these wise words into consideration I have begun my journey into self-publishing. I have started by looking at photobooks that appeal to me from an aesthetic point and those that peak my interest in their subject matter. A photobook needs to make me what to pick it up, turn the pages, read the text, as such the choices in paper, cover material, font and layout are crucial. I have often found myself “switching off” when flicking through a photobook that is nothing more than a collection of images on crisp white paper, with no discernable reason for them to be in a book but better suited in a white cube type gallery. 

Figure 1 “Sugar Paper Theories” Jack Latham 2016

Jack Latham’s book “The sugar paper theories” is an outstanding book, one that I first discovered whilst visiting an exhibition at RPS house of the same name. Sugar Paper Theories tells the story of one of Iceland’s most notorious injustices. The exhibition itself represented a selection of images and texts from the book and served well to give a glimpse of what the book had to offer. The exhibition introduced the concepts of the book well and certainly encouraged the viewer to want more and take the time to look at the book.  

Latham uses a wide range of paper stock throughout the book, sugar paper for printed texts of police reports and statements, metallic monoprinted pages printed with blown up sections of photographs, light weight single leaf paper with excerpts from interviews, whilst Latham’s photographs are well placed on a more traditional photobook paper. The reader is given the chance to follow the story as it unfolds by unfolding the pages of the book. This is an inspirational body of work presented exactly how it should be.  

Another book that has stood out for me is “Slant” by Aaron Schuman, which pairs images with police reports from the Amhurst Bulletin between 2014 and 2018. At a glance this book looks much like many photobooks with a series of monochrome images set on crips white pages but what sets it apart is the inclusion of the police bulletins. Each image sits opposite a series of bulletins that act as anchors to the images suggested metaphor. The photographs themselves are of simple mundane subjects, a ladder against a tree, a sign, or car, but what Schuman does is allude to something else, thus inviting the viewer to think or react in a different way to these everyday objects. Again, we see the use of different paper textures to define a page with text and a page with a photograph. The bulletins sit on a textured off-white paper and the photographs on a crips white paper. This change in texture and colour adds to the experience of looking through this book.  

Figure 2 “Slant” Aaron Schuman 2019

Within my own practice I look to ways to engage the reader/viewer, using textures and colours to create something that begs to be explored. The topic of housing inequality is one that can be very dry and unappealing and as such is challenging. By adopting the methods of the likes of Latham and Schuman I can create something visually appealing and intriguing, something that pulls the viewer in and demands to be seen.  

References  

Caschel, B “Self publish be happy: a photobook manual and manifesto” 2015 Aperture  

Latham, J “Sugar Paper Theories” 2016 Here Press 

Schuman, A “Slant” 2019 Mack Books 

PHO705:Subtopia/Exurbia and Urbantopia

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , Leave a comment

As I walk the streets of Bath, I find myself asking; what is the future of suburbia? Where I’m standing can it be described as the suburbs?  

“The nearer we get to the present day, the harder it is to define suburbs precisely. The increasing mobility after the Second World War and the collapse of distinctions between classes, jobs and styles of life make it increasingly hard to generalise accurately about suburbs. So we are left with vaguer concepts such as suburbia, subtopia and now also exurbia.” [HELM 6:2007] 

Figure 1 “Suburbia” Bill Owens 1972

Often when we think of the suburban environment, we bring to mind the images of America and those by photographers such as Gregory Crewdson, Todd Hido and, Bill Owens to name but a few who have chosen this environment as their subject. But what of the British suburb? Who do we have representing our suburb? Certainly, the likes of Martin Parr, Chris Killip, and Richard Billingham, have been creating images of the people of the suburbs with little consideration for the architecture that creates the environment that influences the lives of these people. We can now look to artists such as Andy Feltham with his “Incidental View” series and Daniel Stier’s “London Fringes” & “Frontier House” capture the environmental make-up of the country. 

Figure 2 “Incidental Views” Andy Feltham

Andy Feltham’s statement for “Incidental view” speaks of the mundane and the ability to isolate and identify the small wonders we often take for granted or simply do not take notice: 

“This series of images was born from my desire to re-examine the common place; to confront and question the monotonous. Each piece aims to celebrate the incongruous marriage of perceived isolation with an overriding sense of wonder.” [Feltham online]  

And with both his series London Fringes and Frontier House, Stier is similarly interested in the banal, the unseen and overlooked. The new estates growing beyond the suburb and into “Subtopia” or “Exurbia”. The show houses and soon to be show houses in “Frontier House” typify those of the Exurbanites, the middleclass and commuters.  

Figure 3 “Frontier House” Daniel Stier

Subtopia 

The British suburban can be looked at in two defined terms the Subtopia and the Exurbia. As towns and cities extend past the boundaries of pre-war suburbia, we start to see a class divide of those who have a little and those who have more. The term “Subtopia” was coined in the 1955 by the architectural journalist Ian Nairn, in response to a road trip from the south of Britain to the north. Nairn was reacting to the newly developed estates and how he felt the generic architectural blandness had produced “off the peg” developments, thus removing any sense of identity the town or city once had. Nairn goes on to set out in his manifesto: 

“Places are different: Subtopia is the annihilation of the difference by attempting to make one type of scenery standard for town, suburb, countryside and wild. So what has to be done is to intensify the difference between places. This is the basic principle of visual planning – sociology, traffic circulation, industry, housing hygiene – are means. They all attempt to make life more rewarding, more healthy, less pointlessly arduous.” [Nairn 1955:Architecture review] 

Exurbia 

The migration of high earning workers from large cities such as London, has seen the growth of Exurban estates of larger houses, semi-dethatched or dethatched properties with ample parking (drive and garage) and good-sized front and rear gardens. A far cry from the new “affordable” estates and housing association-built dwellings that have reduced in size over the years. Exurbia is home to the commuters, bank managers, politicians, surgeons and company directors. Nestled into the British countryside the exurbanites can spend weekends walking the dogs emulating the country gent or landowner.  

Exurbia – another phrase created in 1955 but this time by the author Augusta Comte Spectorsky in the seminal book “The Exurbanites”, which acts as a social documentary of post-war US and the middleclass populating the environs beyond suburbia.  

Urbantopia

I find these two terms fascinating especially when applying them to the context of the images I make of the outskirts of Bath. There are clear distinctions between Subtopia and the Exurbs. The 1970’s estates in Twerton in the South, with as many small dwellings crammed in like a maze, compared to the spacious homes created at the same time to the North in Weston. I feel however that I’m drawn more towards subtopia, perhaps because I feel a kinship with the people who live on the fringes, I am kind of an outsider too. There is a familiarity to the space that reminds me of where I can from and who I am. Exurbia is an alien place to me and as such I feel out of kilter making images of such places. However, there is a space that occupies the space between the urban and suburban; I call it Urbatopia, the developed spaces of the 60s & 70s, blocks of flats, maisonettes, and sheltered homes. Maybe it’ll catch on.. 

References: 

https://danielstier.com/London-fringes-1

Nairn, I ‘Outrage’  The Architectural Review 1 June 1955 

Unnamed author “The Heritage of Historic Suburbs”, HELM – English Heritage  

Images 

Figure 1 – Bill Owens  “Suburbia” 1972

https://www.picassomio.com/bill-owens/18674.html [Accessed 11/08/2021] 

https://americansuburbx.com/2010/01/theory-bill-owens-suburbia-2000.html [Accessed 11/08/2021] 

Figure 2 – Andy Feltham  “Incidental Views”

https://andyfelthamphotography.com/incidentalview/6e3q6jury27k4o8l03ghrrxv3jjmvn [Accessed 11/08/2021] 

Figure 3 – Daniel Stier  “Frontier House”

https://www.aint-bad.com/article/2015/07/09/daniel-stier/ [Accessed 11/08/2021] 

Figure 4 – Tim Beale “Urbantopia” 2021

PHO705: Walking the same path

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , Leave a comment

There is something to travelling the same route or visiting the same spot time and time again. You start to see things other may miss, the little details, the way light hits the side of a building at a specific time of day or year, the progress of the developing world, or its slow decay. As I move across Bath, from grand Georgian town houses in the centre, out to the grey monochrome of 1960’s Brutalist cramped estates, I am drawn to these less well of areas. There is a greater sense of community here, I think because people have to work harder to live here, they value what is around them more. Often though the well-manicured front gardens of suburban homes are juxtaposed next to poorer dilapidated homes. Like many photographers before me I feel drawn to what is familiar and having grown up in social housing, I feel a kinship to the people of areas such as Twerton, Southdown and Moorfields. I record the places I find as a way of building up a social history of a city that is famed for its tourist hotspots, rather than its many struggling residents.  

A fellow Falmouth University student put me onto the work of American artist William Christenberry, who has recorded the changing appearance of the deep south’s natural landscape and vernacular architecture in diverse formats and media since the early 1960s. His color photographs of loan dilapidated houses, rusted signage, winding dirt roads, and weathered exteriors present, prolonged studies of place that chronicle the passage of time. We can see in Christenberry’s imagery the influence of Walker Evans, in the way he documents the social landscape in all its grit and detail. When talking about photographing Hale county, one of the poorest areas in the American south Christenberry says: 

“This is and always will be where my heart is,” “It is what I care about. Everything I want to say through my work comes out of my feelings about that place – its positive aspects and its negative aspects.” [Christenberry 2005:Guardian online] 

Much of what Christenberry shows the viewer is in isolation to its surroundings, a warehouse, church, or detail of a window, is shown alone and devoid of human interaction. His images are simple things, often using a box brownie and occasionally an 8×10, there is a softness to the finished image, almost avoiding the technical constraints of image making we know today. Many of these images were later used by Christenberry as source material, to create sculptures, painting and collages.  

Figure 1 Images of the deep South – William Christenberry 1960-83

In sharp contrast on the other side of the pond we had the photographer Chris Killip photographing the industrial landscape of northern England. Almost in polar opposition to Christenberry, Killip’s images are in sharp monochrome and feature people within their social landscape. Killip was also heavily influenced by Walker Evans and states: 

“It was Evan’s coolness, about surviving McCarthyism, and all the things that Evans survived; and still you knew he had a distinct political position: it was in the work. Evans gave me a great heart about that. He had navigated much more difficult circumstances that I had. In America, he had to live through a much more charged political situation than the liberalism of England. In America, it’s much more of a minefield for people who are not of the Right.” [Killip  2012:aperture magazine] 

Figure 2 Images of the North – Chris Killip 1974-81

But its Killips images of the urban landscape that speak to me, the use of deep contrasted black and white adds to the bleakness of the subject matter. Unlike Christenberry, there’s little mystery to Killips images, all is laid bare for all to see. The harsh reality of homes crammed in with industrial units and yet the sense of unity of the people who dwell there. Not unlike the residents of the outskirts of Bath, these are people doing the best with what they have.  

I feel that my own practice sits in a place somewhere in-between that of Killip and Christenberry, using a mix of isolated images of place alongside those of communities to create a contemporary view of the reality of living in the UK today. 

Figure 3 Twerton post-war housing and Centurion Pub – Tim Beale 2021

References 

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/william-christenberry-william-christenberry

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/04/william-christenberry-obituary

https://www.phillips.com/detail/william-christenberry/UK040213/70

https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/william-christenberry-summer-winter/

https://chriskillip.com/interviews.html

Caught in the Act: A Conversation with Photographer Chris Killip

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/british-photographer-chris-killip-remembered-after-battle-with-cancer

https://www.x-traonline.org/article/photography-at-the-end-of-industry

Images

Figure 1 William Christenberry “Green warehouse” 1978, “Palmist building” 1961, “Red Building in forest” 1983 various buildings of the south.

Fgure 2 Chris Killip “Demolished housing Wallsend” 1977, “Shop fronts, Huddersfield” 1974, “housing Estate, North shields, Tyneside” 1981

PHO705 FMP: Use Value vs Exchange Value

Posted on Posted in PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , Leave a comment

Use Value is the house, as a space fit for those who occupy it.  

Exchange Value is the house as a commodity to be bought and sold as an asset.

  • Figure 1 “1940’s BISF social housing, Twerton, Bath” Tim Beale 2021
  • Figure 2 “1980’s House, Kingsmead Square, Bath” Tim Beale 2021
In 1951 the conservative party began to deregulate the buildings standards imposed by Labour, this included amount of space allocated to housing, as a result council houses became smaller.

“Today, what economists call the ‘exchange value’ of housing in London, and other cities, has entirely broken the connection with its ‘use value’; exchange value is the price of commodity sold on the market whilst use value is its usefulness to people.” [Minton 38:2017] 

The right to buy scheme in the 1980s, sold to the nation as the greatest of opportunities for everyone to own their own house, was nothing more than a way of stripping assets away from local councils. Restrictions in the use of funds from the sale of council owned houses meant that funds could not be used for replenishing social housing stock. Many who bought their homes, found that the cost of maintaining it was too great and had little choice but to sell it on. In the ten years of the scheme some 1 million houses where sold. It has been estimated that 1/3 of those houses sold are now owned by private landlords.1 

“There is so much to say about a system that increasingly treats housing as a means to accumulate capital, never as a home. A creeping worldview that only understand the value of housing as a commodity, as something to be bought and sold, speculated in, land banked. To them (Tories), where you live is only a piece of property subject to global markets, real estate whose value is tied to location and status rather than its conditions, the wellbeing or stability of its tenants, its impact on the neighbourhood.” [Gibbons 27:2017] 

Figures 3-6 “Empty Bath” there are large number of empty commercial sites in the city many of which have space above for accommodation. The King Edward’s School, owned by Samuel Smiths brewery, has been empty for decades.

Government assistance schemes to help people buy houses, restrict this help to new build housing, deliberately deterring those wishing to utilise existing housing stock. You would think a new build to be a sound investment compared to housing of 40 to 100 years old but is not, as houses in the UK are getting smaller and being built with a lifespan of just 60 years. Neoliberal housing developments over the past twenty years have seen a fall in the design and build quality but increase in the market value of housing stock and as such we have seen correlation between exchange value and use value become more skewed.  

“When it comes to housing, prices are failing to respond to the needs of most people, allowing the influx of global capital, often from dubious sources, to utterly distort the market and creating a crisis of affordability affecting all layers of society.” [Minton 39:2017] 

The concept of affordable housing is one that gets rolled out when talking about the housing crisis, however the UK governments idea of affordable, 80% of market value, is fair from the reality of what the average person can afford. For new build houses in Bath sitting at £500,000 would mean that an “affordable” house costing £400,000. As I discussed in my previous post, research was carried out in Bath illustrating the need for a £80,000+ pay packed to be able to afford a home here. For the government to truly care about its people it should be looking to what is actually “affordable”, given that the reported average annual salary in Bath is £32,000. In their review of ‘The right to the city’ David Madden and Peter Marcus discuss the need for a solution to the affordability crisis and the need to an impartial, unbiased body to govern housing: 

“Housing needs to be opened up to broader democratic scrutiny and input. Currently, the contours of the housing system are determined by a relatively small elite. As a result, the scale of inequality and injustice in the housing system is not widely acknowledgement. We need to create new sites where housing questions can be reopened.” [ Madden/Marcus 36:2017] 

There is no quick win for housing but what is clear is that many of the issues we face as a society comes from the inequality in housing. Rough sleeping on the increase, waiting lists for social housing stretch on for years, and yet we see more luxury apartments being built, empty industrial units and unused purpose-built student accommodation, across the city. When we look to the Right to the City and its manifesto, we see our cities failing on all fronts.  “In recent years UN-HABITAT and UNESCO have led an effort to include the right to the city as part of a broader agenda for human rights.” [Minton 40:2017] As a UNESCO world heritage city, Bath should be leading the way or at the very least working towards these values.  

1 https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jun/28/new-class-landlords-profiting-generation-rent 

References 

https://www.gov.uk/affordable-home-ownership-schemes [Accessed 01.07.2021]

https://www.labcwarranty.co.uk/blog/are-britain-s-houses-getting-smaller-new-data/ [Accessed 01.07.2021]

https://blog.planningportal.co.uk/2018/06/22/how-long-should-a-house-last/ [Accessed 01.07.2021]

Bath at Work Museum Exhibition: http://museumofbatharchitecture.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Bath-History-of-Social-Housing-booklet.pdf   [Accessed 01.07.2021]

Gibbons A “A Place to Call Home” The Right to the City: A Verso Report. 2017 Verso Books

Madden D & Marcus P “The residential Is Political” The Right to the City: A Verso Report. 2017 Verso Books

Minton A “Who is the City For?” The Right to the City: A Verso Report. 2017 Verso Books

PHO705 – Week 2: – A Wave of Gentrification

Posted on Posted in Final Major Project, PHO705: Final Major ProjectTagged , , , , Leave a comment

As I continue to interview the residents of Bath, as I explore its suburban landscape, I met with Christine and Phil. A professional couple living with their two children in the south of Bath having moved here in 2017 from Canada. Having initially rented they now own their house and have become integral parts of active community in that area.  

Figure 1-3 “Christine & Phil” Tim Beale 2021

“We definitely are the ‘Gentrification wave’ of Bath. Of this area. I don’t want people, that don’t have the same resources we did, to just think we have money and that we can just spend it. [When we started out] I definitely had money from my dad, but we just worked a lot. It’s not been easy.” [Christine 2021:interview] 

This part of Bath sits alongside some of the most socially deprived areas, and as such often sees an over spill of antisocial behavior and crime. However, despite this there is a real sense of community here, with active groups coming together to improve the neighborhood for everyone’s benefit.  

“Its something that shocked me at first, in this neighborhood we have quite a few [whispers] ‘quite rough families around’. So, I wasn’t sure if we’d be happy here, lots of antisocial behavior. But then by meeting people from school and the community we really got on with, I realised that the antisocial people are like just 1%. 1% that make a lot of noise, but most people around here are so freaking nice.” [Christine 2021:interview] 

“For me it’s much more about growing a network of friends in a community. That’s the strongest thing for me [about living in this area of Bath] trying to encourage this feeling of community and friendship, know that there’s a lot of opportunities, for friendship where we are.”  [Phil 2021:interview] 

The choice to live in the South of the city was one of economics, initially at least but now the location, close to the outskirts means a quick escape from the city into wilderness. As for many, Christine and Phill are planning an extension to their home. The prohibitive cost of property in Bath eliminates the option to sell up and move to a larger property.  

“According to the National Housing Federation, average house prices are now 14 times the average earnings in Bath and north-east Somerset – a figure that has nearly trebled since 1999. A family must earn at least £87,106 to afford a mortgage in the area.” [Wall 2018:online] 

Given that the average household income for Bath is £38,000 it is easy to see why so many struggle to get onto the property ladder. In an interview with Caitlin, an ex-Bath Spa student and recent resident to Bath, she discussed the fact that many people who live and rent in Bath will more often than not look to move to towns further afield when looking to buy: 

“You get a lot of people that rent here but then when they look to buy, they have to look outside of Bath. They tend to migrate out rather than in.” [Caitlin 2021:interview] 

Figures 4&5 “Caitlin” & “Post-war social housing: Whiteway Circle” Tim Beale 2021

The cost of renting and buying in Bath seems to stem from two key issues, the influx of financially successful people from London and the southeast, and the lack of family homes due to the vast number of HMOs (House of Multiple Occupancy) such as student houses and holiday lets.  

“People have gone from owning a property in London. The next step is to own a property in the countryside and still be close to London.” [Phil 2021:interview] 

This issue of cost of living in the city has lead me to research the work of the French theorist Henri Lefebvre, who in 1968 published “Le Droit à la ville:The right to the city”, an influential piece of literature that has been used across the globe as a manifesto for city development and the wellbeing of its occupants. Lefebvre outlined that the right to the city meant, the right to affordable housing, a decent school for the young, accessible services, reliable public transport, but most of all the right to live and be happy in the city. Fifty years on it seems not a lot has progressed, certainly in Bath, where developers are only building luxury apartments. We find that inequalities are ever present in Bath with pockets of deprivation, mostly found in the outskirts to the Southwest city. 

Despite Bath’s appearance as a wealthy city devoid of social issue this is far from the truth and sadly the same issues that all cities across the UK face, to a greater or lesser degree. As highlighted in a recent council report: 

“Approximately 12% of children in Bath and Northeast Somerset were living in poverty in 2017/18, increasing to approximately 19% when housing costs had been taken into account.” [BathNES 2019:report] 

Despite such harsh figures the local council and central government appear to be doing very little to solve these issues. Reviewing the 50 years since the publishing of “The Rights to the City” Anrea Gibbons writes about the Tory’s approach to housing: 

“There is so much to say about a system that increasingly treats housing as a means to accumulate capital, never as a home. A creeping worldview that only understands the value of housing as a commodity, as something to be bought and sold, speculated in, land banked. To them, where you live is only a piece of property subject to global markets, real estate whose value is tied to location and status rather than its conditions, the wellbeing or stability of its tenants, its impact on the neighborhood.” [Gibbons 2018:48] 

Over the past four years that I have lived in Bath I have seen a sizable number of developments across the city and see more in production as I write this. These have consisted of luxury two-bedroom apartments, student halls, hotels, and overpriced housing estates. Increasingly often developers attempt to get away with reducing the number of “affordable” housing they include in their new estates for few of loss of profits. So called “Affordable” housing in Bath is a fallacy given that the government requirements for a house to be classed as affordable is for it to be 20% below market value. The new housing coming onto the market has an average value of £600,000. This would place a so-called “affordable” house at £480,000. Incidentally, the last piece of social housing to be built in Bath was 1972.  

Figure 6 “The last social housing in Bath” Tim Beale 2021

In his series Suburbia Mexicana Alejandro Cartagena uses urban landscapes and portraiture as a medium to represent the Mexican urban sprawl and rapid development around the metropolitan area of Monterrey. His images tell of the inhabitants and the struggles they face in these new fragmented cities.  

Figures 7&8 “Suburbia Mexicana” 2006-2009 Alejandro Cartengena

“The different aspects of Suburbia mexicana propose alternate narratives, which depict a global issue from a local perspective. Ii feel that my commitment as a photographer is not to denounce our need for a household, but rather to point out the struggle we face following the ideals of a capitalistic system while striving for fairer cities in which to live.” [Cartagena 2009:online] 

Cartagena’s portraits are simple and hold a truth to them, the way his subjects stand or sit. The topographical images of the cities site alongside the portraits and offer the viewer a real sense of place. This body of work really resonates with my own practice as I stive to capture people in a naturistic way, avoiding the deadpan look of other contemporary documentarists. The architectural and topographic images I am aiming to capture are ones that do not dwell or exploit the dilapidation of socially deprived areas, capturing the simple beauty.  

References 

History of Social Housing http://museumofbatharchitecture.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Bath-History-of-Social-Housing-booklet.pdf [Accessed 15.06.21}

Bath and Northeast Somerset Council “Inequalities report” 2019  https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/your-council-and-democracy/local-research-and-statistics/wiki/socio-economic-inequality [Accessed 14/06/2021]

Gibbons A “The Right to the City: A Verso report” 2018 Verso Books 

Wall T, 2018 Guardian online https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/02/tensions-rise-in-bath-exodus-of-londoners-prices-out-local-families [Accessed 14/06/2021] 

Bath and Northwest Somerset Council https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/your-council-and-democracy/local-research-and-statistics/wiki/socio-economic-inequality [Accessed 14/06/2021] 

Cartagena A “Suburbia Mexicana”  https://alejandrocartagena.com/h/home/suburbia-mexicana-people-of-suburbia/ [Accessed 14/06/2021] 

Images 

Figures 1-6 Work in progress images 2021 Tim Beale

Figures 7&8 “Suburbia Mexicana” Alejandro Cartagena https://alejandrocartagena.com/h/home/suburbia-mexicana-people-of-suburbia/ [Accessed 14/06/2021]