As part of the photography collective MAP6, I will be flying out to the Shetland islands located to the North of Scotland, in the most remote area of the UK. Over five days Mitch Karunaratne, David Sterry, Heather Shuker, Phil le Gal, Richard Chivers and myself will be working on a collaborative series of photographs about the islands. I will primarily be located on the small island of Whalsay located to the east coast of the Shetlands, which I will be exploring on foot with my camera and tent.
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WALKING THE ARUN
The River Arun is in the county of West Sussex, close by to where I live. At 37 miles long, it is one of the longest rivers in the South of England. From the series of small streams that form its source in St Leonards Forest, the Arun flows westwards through Horsham and continues through the South Downs towards Arundel, before joining the English Channel at Littlehampton. The river was once one of the busiest shipping arteries in the south, however with the coming of the railways and changes in coastal shipping traffic declined rapidly and the navigation ceased to be maintained from 1888. For some time I have been fascinated by landscapes that are in a state of change, in particular areas that were primarily industrial and now are returning back to some kind of feral, natural habitat. During an afternoon in early April I made a short walk of 7 miles alongside the river Arun between Arundel and Littlehampton. My walk was an attempt to make some kind of connection with the landscape which was once home to a busy shipbuilding industry.
ARCHITECTURE FOR TRAVELLERS
“A walk is always filled with significant phenomena, which are valuable to see and feel.“
Robert Walser, The Walk
Architecture for Travellers is a fascinating walking project from Joshua Edwards and Lynn Xu. Beginning during a residency at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, the project’s first book Photographs Taken at One-Hour Intervals During a Walk from Galveston Island to the West Texas Town of Marfa was published in 2014.
The walk began on November 10th on Galveston Island Texas and ended December 20th at 404 West Galveston Street in Marfa, Texas. Whilst walking from his birthplace on the island of Galveston to the town of Marfa, where he and his wife will build their own home, poet Joshua Edwards took a photograph at the end of each hour of walking with the constraints of using only available light and a fixed lens. The book collects all 230 black and white photographs from the 680-mile trip and serves as a companion to a collection of poems and travel pieces.
To find out more information about the project or buy the book, you can visit the dedicated website here.
The walkers:
Joshua Edwards is the author of three collections of poetry and directs the independent publisher Canarium Books. His other photographic work can be found on his website here.
Lynn Xu was born in Shanghai, grew up in Chicago, and walked from Austin to Kerrville. She’s the author of a various of collections of poetry and the co-editor of Canarium Books.
THROUGH SHORE PINE
A recent discovery of mine is the wonderful A Road Through Shore Pine, by Robert Adams. The work was made in Nehalem Bay State Park, Oregon, in the fall of 2013. Now realised in a book of 18 medium format prints, the series traces a contemplative journey, first by automobile, then by foot, along an isolated, tree-bordered road to the sea. The passage takes on the quality of metaphor, suggestive of life’s most meaningful journeys, especially its final ones.
Adams writes, “The road is one that my family traveled often and fondly. Many of its members are gone now, and Kerstin and I visit the road for the example of the trees.” Adams was said to have stored this work in an archival print box on which he inscribed in pencil a line from the journal of the Greek poet George Seferis, “A marvelous road, enough to make you weep; pine trees, pine trees…”
MK CALLING
Myself and Mitch being interview for the opening of the MK calling show, at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. The show is on until the 27 May 2017.
Thursday & Friday 12 – 8pm
Saturday 11am – 8pm
Admission Free
MK OPENING NIGHT
Collaboration is at the the heart of the MAP6 collective, and we are constantly trying to find ways in which we can further this practice. For the show at the MK Gallery, we decided to edit and exhibit the work as a whole, rather than as individual projects. It was interesting to see how images made by 8 individual photographers worked together, printed and sized differently. We hope to push this further with coming projects, as well as collaborate with other photographers, designers and curators.
We had a brilliant time at the opening night of the Milton Keynes Project. The MK Gallery was packed and everybody seemed fascinated with the work. Thank you to everybody that came to see the work, which will be on show for a further 5 weeks.
MK PRIVATE VIEW
The MAP6 Milton Keynes Project will open at the Milton Keynes Art Gallery on April 20th. Come along, see our new work and meet us!
MK PROJECT LIVE
The Milton Keynes project is now live on the MAP6 website!
THE MK PROJECT
At the end of March, 8 photographers from the MAP6 collective spent the weekend in Milton Keynes, working intensely on a new collaborative project. The work will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the city and will be exhibited at the MK gallery. During my 72 hours there, I made a series of images documenting my walk around the edges of the Milton Keynes road system called the Grid. The series is called Autopia.
WALKING WITH STRANGERS
In May last year I walked for three months from Le Puy en Velay in Eastern France, and ending 1700km later at Muxia on the West coast of Spain. The past few months since my return, I have been shaping the work into a series that I have now called Walking with Strangers. The pilgrim in the photograph is Tom from England, and I met him walking along an abandoned train line in France. More Images coming soon…
PHOTOWALK 