OCA student hangout 13/11/19 Assignment 2 BOW

I sent this to the group to have a look at (time permitting before the meeting)

I feel like I’m at the beginning of Assignment 2 with my photos because my initial plan has been hampered by the weather (rain, rain and more rain led to the space I was investigating becoming inaccessible!) After a period of rethinking my approach and lots of reading for my literature review, I decided to focus on rubbish dropped by people in the environment. This is the micro. My grand narrative is waste.

The site I am investigating is the redundant village coalmine. All the machinery has been removed, the shafts filled in and it is owned by a group at present who have used it to sort coal fines. During my last OCA course, I explored the site and used archived images laid on top of actual site images to “reconstruct” the past. A few years ago, planning permission was sought and refused for a big waste incinerator on the site on environmental grounds (2 bird species on the adjoining heath)

Waste can be divided into bodily, cultural and societal waste. I am focusing on cultural waste which takes in words such as “rubble, rubbish, trash, garbage, litter, filth and excrement” (Morrison, 2013:1) although I am filtering out bags of dog waste at the moment. (I have considered “fake” filled dog bags though) Waste can also by physical or metaphorical. I’m focusing on physical.

The initial work for this assignment saw me looking at how nature is reclaiming waste in the form of landfill. And trying to compare shapes of rubbish with nature. Much of the landfill I found is now inaccessible.

The work has developed to look at litter. The plan is that I complete a walk around the perimeter of the old coal mine area, collecting litter along the path / area. Once I have 15 pieces I will photograph it as a collection and take it with me to dispose of correctly. My extended project will investigate how the government are devolving litter picking down to local councils and organisations and how research is starting to investigate litter picking activities as a part of “wellbeing”. (this is in my head as I’m writing my literature review) Can be extended to include Trail fairies .

So far, I have done 2 walks and collected just over 30 pieces of rubbish. I started looking at typology by taking the images insitu in their habitat. I’ve put 2 types together so far.

Typology

I can reshoot the 1^st and 3^rd image on the plastic bottles so they face the same way.

Questions

Do you think it works?

Is the background distracting?

Do they need laying out neatly on a non-grassy surface?

My thoughts are that this would be supporting work rather than the final pieces.

Presentation of rubbish

I wanted to separate rubbish from the environment and use a geometric shape, so it stood out. I tried a circle, so everything was related to each other rather than squares which makes me think of typology. Trying to show waste on wasteland.

Does the first image work? I tried it in landscape but felt it was lost.

In the 2 images below, I hung the rubbish on the tree. I would consider using pegs for the crisp packets etc that keep blowing away. I felt this representation with the leaves was typical of the lifecycle of rubbish – dropped, covered, lost, rediscovered through the seasons. Ideas around “mother nature”, tree as washing line.

My next shoot will look at stringing a line between 2 trees and peg on the rubbish to make the trees clutter free although the leaves would change with the time of year.

Have you come across any photographers working with rubbish?

The group were very encouraging and confirmed some of my thoughts. They helpfully suggested other avenues to research or consider. Everyone had a personal recollection of rubbish / waste too. All thought it was an interesting and relevant topic. It opened up lots of discussion from across the world.

Typology
1st set of images - Mixed reaction from the group. Hard to identify and make visual sense of or something less obvious that you have to work out. Square images are really static so it fits the visual concept of it being there for a long time. 

2nd set of images - Would a black background work? Like forensic evidence. Needs contextualizing.

This has confirmed my thoughts that I will not explore this avenue further.

Circle of rubbish
This image hasn't worked but that's not to say it won't. Experiment with different lighting. Keep playing.

Rubbish in tree

Like the concept of collecting rubbish and wondering what you could do with it. Make something from it such as a sculpture and place in the environment. Give new life to old rubbish. Put rubbish in a space and make your story with a found object. Can it connect with the former mine site? At the moment there is no visual connection. Create stuff from the rubbish to say something about the site. Miners discarded like rubbish. More interesting with the environment in the frame. 

It looks like I have two distinct ides that I am exploring here - not disturbing things / left to rot (post industrial coal mining dissolving into the earth) and reconstructing things. Perhaps I need to revisit the grand narrative? Discussed background narratives e.g climate change, commercialism, late capitalism, psychogeography. 

Other photographers suggested include Chloe Juno (follow on Instagram), Mandy Barker "Soup", Robert Rachenburg, Rob Briscoe (revisit his Forest work) and Veronica Worrell.

I was also encouraged to try alternative photography techniques.
http://www.alternativephotography.com/anthotypes-making-print-using-plants/ accessed 14/11/19
I found this website with a few alternative techniques. I had not come across printing on leaves before.
https://cyanotype.co.uk/cyanotype_megakit.html (popping this ref in here so I can find it later)