Free Range Photography Week 2
The Free Range events are impressive and overwhelming in equal manner. The premise is that creative universities from around the country pay to exhibit their degree shows in a huge old brewery located in East London. The idea being that all under one roof is mutually beneficial in terms of promotion and turn out, creating a one-stop shop for London’s creative’s to view future talent.
Vignette went along and despite at points feeling like we had lost are car in a car park we were very impressed with the event and individual shows. Here we present are favourite works from a variety of courses.
University of the West of England
A good night for UWE with Elly Peers being awarded Best Work by the British Journal for her series looking at the use of online platforms in the soliciting of sexual activities with strangers.
Siobhan Raw’s Spirit pays homage to Jeffrey Eugenides Virgin Suicides with a series of year book style portraits. The images are crisp and well styled, the size of the prints giving the work an impressive presence.
© Siobhan Raw
Peripheral by George Scane was badly presented with hundreds of prints nailed up, however the accompanying book shone through with a more refined edit. The project investigates the forgotten areas along Bristol’s county borders, with the work having a real sense of the photographer pacing the streets.
© George Scane
www.cargocollective.com/georgescane
University of the Creative Arts Farnham
James Rawling’s Paying Fields images are steeped in atmosphere and shot in a familiar frontal manner, presenting spaces ‘repurposed’ for war games and simulations.
© James Rawlings
http://www.jamesrawlings.co.uk/
Samuel Bradley’s No Cowboys was presented as small set of framed prints, in scale of the show it was easy to miss this quiet work. The project documents gun culture around Britain, male dominated and niche in nature Bradley portrays it as an artisan hobby as free from the negative connections made in the media.
© Samuel Bradley
Swansea Metropolitan University
Marianne Demmo’s Amr: Aqaba was one of the few projects shot outside the UK. Aqaba is an area of Jordan that in 2006 was marked for grand development. Progress is visibly slow, being at the intersection of the global finical crisis and the Arab Spring.
© Marianne Demmo
Dan Carroll’s Beauty Spots consists of part-staged scenes giving no sense of place and instead showing a universal response to an area of natural beauty. A good concept well executed.
© Dan Carroll
University of Central Lancashire
The consistency of this show deserves a special mention with a high-level of technical ability displayed by the students. Occupying the external downstairs space it was the strength of single images as opposed to projects that made this show very distinct including:
Gavin Richmond
© Gavin Richmond
Dave Alexander
© Dave Alexander
Many of this years graduates will be able to move on from Free Range to pursue their chosen careers within photography, to all the second years coming through these institutions, a high standard has been set.
The Free Range Graduate Photography Week 2 runs until the 25th of June, for more info http://www.free-range.org.uk/