Everyday Film & Photography

Opening: Friday 5th June 2009, 5-8pm, with a performance by Splitty McCheeks at 7pm. Thank you to everyone who made it to the opening despite adversity of bad weather, road closures, train station closures and access problems!

Then: Thursday - Saturday 10am - 4pm and Sundays 11am - 4pm

Until: Friday 26th June 2009

An exhibition of camera based work documenting, assessing and appraising The Everyday: ephemeral, absurd, boring, glorious, dull, exciting, pointless, phenomenal, focused, blurred, tenuous... fun.

Artists: Barry Anderson, Tom Bamforth, Georgia Boniface, Kevin Boniface, Alice Bradshaw, Simona Dell'Agli, Tania Diego, Eagle & Feather, Lock & Henner, Joanne Hummel-Newell, Becky Matthews, Joe Mawson, Laurence Payot, Milk Two Sugars, Shaw & Shaw, Splitty McCheeks, Fani Zguro

7th top recommended thing to do in The Big Issue North June 2009

Splitty McCheeks Live at Temporary Art Space from Kevin Boniface on Vimeo.

Splitty McCheeks performance 05/06/09

On this page:
Photos from the show
Artists' details






Alice Bradshaw - Prints 13, 11 & 8 / Tania Diego - Habitario / Alice Bradshaw - Static / Becky Matthews - Discarded


Becky Matthews - Discarded


Tania Diego - Habitario


Alice Bradshaw - Prints 13, 11 & 8


Simona Dell'Agli - Uninterrupted Views


Thomas Bamforth - Whitehill & Wellholme


Lock & Henner - Present History & Class of 79


Georgia Boniface - Dolls


Mishka Henner - Winning Mentality

Photos from the opening night:










About the artists:



Barry Anderson

"Breaking news, city lights, sound bites, stock quote crawls - the media offers us a world doled out in 20-minute intervals that dazzle, scream, and demand. It is a place - to borrow the spirit of Calgon - that we work to escape from. And art, from Medieval frescoes to landscape photography, has been more than willing to provide alternative destinations in the remote sanctuaries of religion, nature - and even the sensational.

But there's an alternative to this full-scale flight from reality and its isolated fantasy worlds. We can find refuge from the world in the world. In a bustling train terminal. Outside of a major tourist attraction. On an airplane. In a busy plaza.

And that's the place - or perhaps, more appropriately the space - I try to reveal in my videos, installations, and photographs, a place between the two extremes - between heaven and earth, expectation and the everyday, the macrocosm and the microcosm, desire and fulfillment.

Call it an enduring moment that's at once in and beyond time. Maybe it's an invitation to linger, to wait, to reflect. Unlike the colorful cacophony that constantly bombards us, it is a space, that is slowly and discretely revealed, that moment that usually sneaks by us unseen, but that once we see it allows us to see ourselves a bit more clearly."

Image: still from Trash Can

www.barryanderson.com



Thomas Bamforth

"In a society transformed into a marketplace, the camera is used less as a tool of documenting the truth, historic evidence of our resilience as a species, and more as a tool of exploitation and financial success.

This work explores the role of photographer in documentary photography, a genre that has lost its integrity due to the influx of digital technology, ease of image manipulation, and the distrust people have of cameras.

Reversing the power roles, here the photographer becomes a facilitator, allowing the subject to document their own everyday lives, situations and environments, by providing simple equipment and appropriate information. Removing the built-in formal rules of photography, images are made through the eyes and minds of the subjects, creating sincere, truthful and un-exploitive imagery with no pre-conceptions of how they should, or will be shown.

The projects involve boys from the Pupil Referral Unit at Whitehill Community Primary School, Illingworth, and teenagers from an underclass area of Brighouse, who use a local park, Wellholme, as their own micro-society. The subjects document their own surroundings, choose their best work and help exhibit them in situ. In the park as graffiti, wheat paste posters, and in the school as a display for fellow students and parents.

As the facilitator I hopes to take this working method to other subjects, who have an equally interesting story to tell."

Image: Whitehill



Georgia Boniface

"Georgia Boniface's background in fashion and textiles is brought to bear on canvas. Traditional appliqué techniques combine with a powerful compositional and graphic sensibility to bring about a vivid, hand-made, ephemeral and precise explosion of military hardware, pin-badges, British flora and fauna and icons of punk rock and modern art."

Image: Balloons

web.mac.com/victorygarden.mac



Kevin Boniface

"Kevin Boniface is an artist/writer. He has exhibited irregularly at galleries around the UK. He writes a diary all about being a postman in Huddersfield which won some awards and was published by Old Street Publishing last year as Lost in the Post; The Independent said it would be "a cult classic" and a man on the Amazon website said it was "Utter Rubbish". Kevin has also made a zine called Compact News which Tom said he liked.

Chris at work once said he thought Kevin might not really be a very good artist and that he might just be out to shock people for the sake of it; Kevin told him to go f**k himself."

Image: Found Notes: Do Some Work Dan Daley - Message in a Bottle

web.mac.com/victorygarden.mac



Alice Bradshaw

"I work with a wide range of media and processes involving the manipulation of everyday objects and materials. Mass-produced, anonymous objects are often rendered dysfunctional caricatures of themselves, addressing concepts of purpose and futility. I create or accentuate subtleties, blurring distinctions between the absurd and the mundane."

Image: Print 15

www.alicebradshaw.co.uk



Simona Dell'Agli

"This series of photographs were taken in properties in London between 2006 and 2007, when the buy-to-let boom seemed unshakable. Working as a freelance Inventory Clerk for well established estate agents, my job consisted of visiting properties when the tenants were either moving in or moving out, and updating the inventory by listing and describing every item and its present condition.

The photographs were all taken a few minutes before the tenants were due to arrive to start their tenancy, or in rare occasions, at check-out with no tenant present. Knowing how central to the UK economy the housing market is, and the controversial position the buy-to-let market has held for so many years, the flats are often unremarkable and tired-looking. All images show the flats as found.

This series of photographs tried to reconcile my day to day job with my 'ideal' career as a photographic artist.

I graduated from the University of Westminster with an MA in Photographic Studies in 2001 and currently work part-time with Artquest"

Image: Isle of Dogs - sink

www.simonadellagli.co.uk



Tania Diego

"The nature of the human being is create an attachment to the spaces they inhabit. Habitario is about the links people establish with their home as private space and gradually appropriated through the transformation and emotional identification, reflecting the characteristics of those who inhabit it. Each house holds different environments as part of the everyday.

Tania Diego (1984) lives and works in Mexico City. Graduated from Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas UNAM and a master in Contemporary Photography: arts and crafts. She has exhibited mainly in Mexico."

Image: Habitario

www.myspace.com/absolutebegginers



Eagle & Feather

"Kipple is made from VHS videos found in charity shops some of which include:
Fish for a Quid, Introducing the new Velux Roof Window System, Electronic Monitoring for Offenders, How to Hang Wallpaper, Creative Routing for the Home Craftsman, How You Can Win Competitions, Egyptian Belly Dancing for Intermediates, Get to Know God Video, Happy to be a Muslim, The Kingdom of Ticky Tack, The Story of the Red Mason Bee, Ray Reardon Master Class, Food Processor Cooking, Traction Engines, Learn the Skills of Rugby League, Master Bakers: A Golden Opportunity, Tony Allcock's Art of Bowls, Get That Job, Game for a Job, Is Work for Me?, Learning Tenor Banjo, Darrin's Dancing Grooves, Kleeneze: What does Success Mean to You?, Horse Sense for Riders, Super Tours in Super Somerset, Discover Fish, Learn to Knot Vol 1, Sports Boat, The Fun of Cake Decorating, Fimo Modelling Project, Jersey Battle of Flowers, Breastfeeding: A Gift for Life, What you Really Need to know about Problems with Fertility, Out and About and Dry."

Image: Kipple

www.smileorangefilms.co.uk/film_kipple.html

www.youtube.com/user/OOOOKIPPLEOOO



Lock & Henner

"In some ways, Present History is a photographic game; comparing portraits made in the same town during different eras to create some startling pairings. For example, the elaborate dresses made for young Asian performers have more in common with the nostalgic, Victorian ways of dressing captured in early portrait photographs. In another, a vintage portrait of two schoolboys is compared to a contemporary version, in which advertising is emblazoned on the football shirts of two young Oldham supporters, alluding to the manner in which commercial interests have come to dominate all our lives.

Class of 79, an accompanying piece, is also a game of sorts, imagining the celebrated and notorious cultural icons of today as students of a single, proud-looking teacher. Subverting the conventions of the school portrait, the class includes Jade Goody, David Beckham and Simon Cowell, all cultural entrerpreneurs in their own right who have benefitted hugely from the market possibilities opened up by Margaret Thatcher's aggressive free market ideology. With the inclusion of a rogue Fred West (every class has it's bad apple) and Tony Blair, the group photograph becomes tinged with a sense of cyncism and tragedy about what could have been had we not succumbed to the temptations offered by the promises of one teacher's narrow vision. "

Image: Present History & Class of 79

www.common-eye.com



Joanne Hummel-Newell

"Joanne Hummel-Newell is an artist/film maker based in South East England.
 Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2006 her films have been screened at festivals internationally and she has exhibited her paper works and painting widely.

My work is concerned with the immediacy of spontaneous drawing. I believe mark making and its deviation from cognitive processes can create a candid outcome. I'm fascinated by handwriting, children's scribbles and telephone doodles. I strive to maintain this kind of spontaneity in my own work. The notes become a sort of homage or reference to this. Sound is also an important starting point for my drawing.

A Day Out began as a sound project. I collected sound from the underground and various parts of London and began drawing in response. Each cell is individually worked on using pencil, monoprint and collage."

Image: Two For Five Pounds

www.joannehummelnewell.com



Becky Matthews

"Discarded: Since the fall of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has been forced to address the problem of rebuilding social services. As part of new Europe the country undergone a fast but unbalanced economic growth, the result of which is that social services are failing, and those in need are being neglected.

Established in 1991 by the Reverend Benard Cocker following a visit to the country, the charity International Aid Trust provides long term care for those suffering extreme poverty. The charity takes new and used goods donated by individuals and corporations in the UK and redistributes them to those in need.The International Aid Trust warehouse is the largest in Europe.

Becky Matthews has been a full time press photographer since 1998. Now branching out into more long term projects she has just completed Discarded and My Big Fat Ugandan Wedding. Both projects are based on the concept of recycling on an global scale."

Image: Discarded

www.beckymatthews.co.uk



Joe Mawson

"Plane follows a small aeroplane as it prepares to take off. Played out on the floor of the artist's shared studio, the work explores the role of the studio space as a place where fiction, imagination and the ridiculous can exist.

Mawson uses photography and video as both medium and as subject. His work explores ideas of staging and tableaux, referencing narratives that real or imagined or half real and half made up. His work plays with aesthetics, to produce work that speaks of and about its own process of production, often revealing its own failings. Mawson lives and works in Leeds, UK."

Image: still from Plane

www.joemawson.co.uk



Laurence Payot

"The main catalysts for my work are patterns found in everyday life. I ask the viewer to question patterns that have become mundane and almost invisible, by altering them slightly and turning them into something uncanny. My work uses "chameleon techniques," allowing me to create site-specific work that looks like it has always belonged there. I don't intend my work to stand out at a first glance, but when a person discovers it, what is revealed is unexpected and disturbing - a small shock or revelation that something has been altered."

Laurence Payot is a French artist practicing in Liverpool, UK, where she is a also director of The Royal Standard.

Image: still from performance Human Billboard Having a Break

www.laurencepayot.com



Milk Two Sugars

Bob Milner on A Funny Little Dance: "Our practice gives serious regard to the faux decadence of girlish or womanish preoccupations, like dancing. The choice of imagery in the film questions gender distinctions and the status of the decorative as opposed to typical male ideas of grandeur and building for prosperity; exploring the gulf between the two archetypal constraints. This creates the tension, symbolised in a funny little dance."

Tom Senior on Cinefun: "I became interested in the expressive qualities of the human voice during voice workshops I attended some years ago. Participants were encouraged to play with sound, in the way children seem to, before they learn to speak. We gurgled and chortled, made animal noises, called and crooned, and we communicated to each other using these nonsense sounds. Though we were sometimes in a darkened room where we could not 'read' each other's facial expressions, we were able to convey emotion and meaning with these nonsensical noises. As a visual artist, I wondered if something as abstract as these sounds could be explored in visual imagery. How could I depict an energetic, joyous laugh, or a gut-wrenching, wailing sadness? Could frenzied, erratic lines convey wild cackling calls, or a soft smudgy line convey a gentle humming? I didn't know then and I still don't. Enjoy the film!"

Image: still from A Funny Little Dance

www.milktwosugars.org



Shaw & Shaw

"Christoph Likes when things arrive from ebay, Berlin, the seashore, climbing trees, sandals and socks, dreaming, vinyl, Johnny and the Hurricanes, football, gingham, lederhosen, Best Dressed Chicken in Town, gugelhupf, a good plan, Seasick Steve, sightings of Elvis and Big Foot, post-it notes and ants nests.

Jo likes drinking tea, New York, Huddersfield, swimming pool, Miranda July, charity shops, AC/DC, please and thank you, whimsy, fish dinners, Antiques Roadshow, knitted garages, No More Nails, William Eggleston, the golden section, shoes, the Eiffel Tower and chatting.

Christoph dislikes coffee chains, the Rocky Horror Show, the charts, musicals, celebrity, dog shit, the Daily Mail, putting up shelves, Tom Cruise, Radio 1, Jo navigating, mither phone calls, getting organised, toilet brushes and Stockport Precinct.

Jo dislikes camping, being on hold, being told, pets, occasionally having to say "say cheese," team sports, sci-fi, trifle, retails parks, rainy days and Mondays, fuss, hi-vis vests. Navigation, Christoph doing DIY, balancing the books, "at the end of the day.""

Image: I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

www.shawandshaw.co.uk



Splitty McCheeks

Terrence Splitty (Keyboards and Tape Echoes) and Achilles McCheeks (VHS video cassettes and Paper)

"Terrence Splitty and Achilles McCheeks perform music with video cassettes and still images while painting sound pictures with keyboards and gummy bits of tape going round and round and round.

Terrence and Achilles will thrill the audience at the opening of Everyday Film & Photography with an improvised show entitled 'Wurlitz und Kino.' Achilles will show us some of his favourite videos and Terence must play along with no previous knowledge what video clips he will play to.

Splitty McCheeks' costumes were exquisitely designed by The Master Craftsmen of Fes. Masks courtesy of Ainley Top Garden Centre."

Image: Splitty McCheeks

www.myspace.com/splittymccheeks



Fani Zguro

"Fani Zguro born 1977 in Tirana (Albania). After Accademia delle belle arti di Brera in Milano (1998/2002), he frequented 2003/04 the program artists in residence in Cite International des Arts in Paris, for working after this, like independent curator in The National Gallery of Arts in Tirana between 2004/06. From 2007 he is the project director of Tirana Art Center, when till now are presented the projects of Tomas Saraceno and Bert Theis. At the same year works for different projects with Isola Art Center, like the exhibition curated by him "Absolute Beginners," with the participating of some international artists like Anri Sala and is the winner of The 15th International Onufri Prize. From 2008 he's making the master of biennio laurea specialistica in Accademia delle belle arti di Brera in Milano. This year is part of the program artists in residence between Kultur Kontakt in Vienna, La Gènèrale en Manufacture in Sevres Paris and Taller Siete in Medellin. His works are presented in different places like Palazzo delle Papesse Siena, Tirana Biennale, Isola Art Center Milan, Micro Museum New York, The National Center of Contemporary Art Moscow, The National Library of Buenos Aires, The National Gallery of Arts Tirana, The National Gallery of Arts Prishtina, Neon Campobase Bologna, Taller Siete Medellin, Galerie ArtPoint Vienna, La Gènèrale en Manufacture Sevres Paris, Biennale del Mediterraneo Taviano, Festival of Video Art in Casablanca, Pursuit of Happiness Glasgow, August Art Gallery London, Klenner Gallery Bogotà, Raum Gallery Tirana, Promenade Gallery Vlora etc."

Image: still from Street By Street

www.fani-zguro.com