The excellent PhotoPool exhibition and talks programme at HIVEArts has continued throughout August. David Simper went down to catch three speakers programme on Saturday 17th.
Although I had heard Richard Oughton’s excellent presentation at a Blackpool Community Darkroom event at the Aunty Social venue a couple of nights before, I was keen to hear it again. As it was, bus times meant that I was slightly late and found Richard in full flow in the first floor HIVEArts gallery space.
As the best things in life tend to happen, Richard fell into recording the Northern Soul dance and music scene rather than setting out to do that. His pictures are of extremely high quality and often stunning, in both black and white and colour. They are taken using a remote flash, which is something I’ve never thought of doing; for my gig photography, I used to slap the camera on a Metz 45 flash gun, select the f5.6 aperture and that was sorted. However, this technique is based on there being no light at the venues, which is both challenging and opens up the opportunity for something creative. Many of the shots are effectively back lit silhouettes.
Of equal importance is the stories behind the personalities captured in these images and their joint love for the music and expressing themselves through dance. As I can’t dance for toffee, I’m slightly jealous here. Several of the images were of people who have left us for a variety of reasons, which added a poignant edge. Northern Soul embraces a wide diversity, all united by a passion for this musical movement.
A visit to the Brazilian scene added an international dimension. These pictures showed Northern England being duplicated in a South American country. Fascinating! The folk process continues to this day.
Next to present was James Walmsley. James did not describe himself as a photographer, but throughout as a curator. Again he seemed to have fallen into the role rather than have decided to adopt it, having spotted that work that needed to be seen was being missed. This has meant working with survivors of conflicts in Kosovo, Serbia and Palestine, and curating the work of creatives in exhibitions in the UK. James has curated an exhibition of 50 Gazan artists at Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.
What matters behind this is the human stories, creativity triumphing over evil. Working in Housing in Coventry, I remember the first sign of what became the Kosovan crisis – a number of stowaways disembarked from a lorry at a local service station and needed to be accommodated. James’s stand out story was that of a lady who Serbian paramilitaries had tried to kill and who’d survived despite taking 16 rounds. Now she is a creative and a mother. This sort of thing never ends – my former brother-in-law’s father had lost his family in Poland in WW2 in a similar instant.
Congratulations to James for bringing this work to the prominence it deserves under the heading of Curating Conflict.
At this point I needed to shoot off. Apologies to Sean Coboy for missing his comments on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and photography and how this will affect the future. Already we’re beginning to see a role in current elections and that’s pobably going to increase in the future.
Congratulations to HIVEArts for pulling together these fine speakers and others in the programme on ensuing days. PhotoPool continues to 31st August 2024. Thanks to Dawn Mander for providing the photographs with this article.
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