Transform InsideOUT at Snibston

Transform is a relatively new project that is  incorporating art with history of the local area in association wit Leicestershire's Heritage. We were given a presentation at college by the two project leaders and artists Peter Walker and McKeown, the pair came to talk about 'Transform', share their work, ideas and give us a taster of what sort of work they'd be displaying in the festival and what the meaning was behind it.

Although the project does involve Snibston's history, the main thing that was mentioned is the new software they've been using named SlipStream that the pair have developed by themselves and the public can access for free on the internet. The unique, new and exciting part of the SlipStream software is that no piece of work will ever be the same, it will all be individual and will never be used or seen again, the work produced with it can't even be saved as a single file/project. This aspect of the software is completely deliberate and is meant to reflect the modern age and the world we live in, that everything is disposable and almost everything is readily available at our finger tips.

During the lecture we were given a demonstration of how to use the software and this gave us a real idea of how it worked and how it could be used. The software is very clever although it is still very much a work in progress and is being 'tweeked' or improved and added to all the time. They hope that once they are finished developing it that it can become a more widespread thing used by artists across the board. The pieces of work, as I've previously mentioned are one offs. Once you select the images you wish to use for the projection or slide show the software can take certain parts of the image and turn it into different shapes as well as rotating the image so that the different pieces then get layered on top of one another to create one big really fascinating piece that is constantly changing and developing, almost like the project as a whole is. One of the aspects of this project that I did really like was that, the artists have done this and designed it in such a way that, it's meant to be projected on to a huge surface making it even more obscure and giving it let another level. The only problems they've had so far with this is finding places that will allow them to project their work onto such surfaces especially in public places, one of the reasons they're having this difficulty is because they can't save their work and produce the exact same thing for them again.

The way that they've linked the project to Snibston, where the work will be displayed at the festival, is that all the images that are included in the slideshow were taken at Snibston and reflected the feel of the area perfectly.

Although we were very much aware that the software was a work in progress I think the work and the concept itself was very interesting. For me, I feel that I would use the software if I was able to save my work and look at it, show it to people more than once. I do however understand why this is a feature they have deliberately left out and the point that the artists/designers are trying to make and what statement they're making about the modern world and the times we live in, so I understand their reluctance. 

Jade Birchnall

Jade Birchnall is currently in her final year of her Photography Degree at Manchester University, who previously studied on our Photography course at Burton and South Derbyshire College. She came in and gave a talk about her work as well as presenting some of her images/series and gave us an insight on how going to University has changed the standard of her work and the way she works. 
Jade's Tumblr (website coming soon)

The projects she showed us were all portrait ones with very few still life images. She said herself as well as in her written artist statements why she shoots so many portraits and why she felt she'd developed this style and why it was important to her work and her as an individual. During her talk, she answered the question, 'Why Portraits?'. Jade feels that portraits tell you stories about the subject, draw you in and you're able to connect with the person as well as reveal 'part of a persons mystery'. We were also told about why she preferred to shoot on film, that it made you really think about what photos you take and how you take them, that it's much less disposable than digital photography.


The first project that got her focusing more on portraiture, was 'Yesterday Is Gone', Birchnall took such a strong interest in it because the subject was her Grandma, who'd been recently diagnosed with Senile Dementia which is something that had really effected her and her families lives. Yesterday is gone is a mixture of images as well of recordings of conversations she'd had with her Grandmother. The photos documented her Grandma and gave an insight into how she lived her life, the recordings went really well with the photos and made it feel a lot more personal. The recordings were done without her Grandma's knowledge and this made the content more honest and the clips selected fitted really well and made the photos have an even stronger impact.


Birchnall went on to another project called, 'The Little Sisters of the Poor', although she has a lot of images for this already it's a continuing project that will eventually be put in a publish book. The photos consist of portraits of residents and workers of an old peoples home that is maintained by a group of Catholic Nuns. The portraits show peoples personality and how isolating life in a home can be and how vulnerable they feel. It also looks at the theme of faith and religion. 
Through starting to do this she got in touch with another group of Nun's who were enthusiastic about her photographing them so she began doing that and expanding her project.


Some of Birchnall's Images.
(all of these images were found on her Tumblr, link at the top) 

                                                 

One of the few still lifes, from her project at the home. I think this photo fits well with the theme of her work because of the chair being empty and on it's own it portrays feelings of loneliness and isolation well.

          I really like this photo as it's slightly different to the portraits of the other residents I saw. This shows a happier, more upbeat side when you compare it to the others. His expression as well as the party hat add to those feelings and make it quite a hopeful image.