Brighton Photo Biennial 2018
For a school trip, we headed down to Brighton for the day. The purpose of this was to see the 2018 Photo Biennial, scattered around the seaside town. The theme of these numerous exhibitions was Brexit, which I felt was an important theme which directly related to me. I knew these images would have more of a personal impact on me than some other, older, people. We went to five exhibitions, all around the town.
Exhibitions
The first image we saw (I wouldn't count a single image as an exhibition, more of a component) was a large, almost billboard sized print of a girl stuck onto a container. The image had a portrait of a girl with her name (Brenna), her occupation ('Training to be a Project--) and 'Applying for Irish Citizenship' written on the right corner of the image. It was clear that the purpose of this image was to shine a light on the people affected by Brexit. The image was appropriately placed in the middle of a square, which was pretty much empty when we were there but (because of the restaurants and library next to it) would definitely be busy in the evenings. This huge image in this place is the perfect way to raise awareness for the people that Brexit is really gonna affect. The artist prints a new image on the container over the old one each week, of a new person with the same type of text in the corner. While we saw Brenna, it would have been a different person the week before and a different person the week after. Personally, I loved the way this idea was carried out. A billboard type of photo advertising something that really needs to be advertised, changing every week but keeping the same idea and theme behind it. In terms of exhibition, the way this image was exhibited was my favourite from the whole trip.
In the library literally next to the container there was another exhibition which was part of the biennial. Buried amidst the stacks of books were long sheets of paper, showing images and a single word under them. The images all revolved around a woman on Brighton beach, with books buried under the pebbles and a Roman Centurion costume. The words were in a particular, interesting font and seemed to say something about the image it was under. I didn't really connect with these images, and I felt like I wasn't really meant to. Perhaps, if I lived in Brighton (where it seemed the central theme of these images were) I would haveThen, in the library literally next to it, there was another exhibition which was part of the biennial. Buried amidst the stacks of books were long sheets of paper, showing images and a single word under them. The images all revolved around a woman on Brighton beach, with books buried under the pebbles and a Roman Centurion costume. The words were in a particular, interesting font and seemed to say something about the image it was under. I didn't really connect with these images, and I felt like I wasn't really meant to. Perhaps, if I lived in Brighton (where it seemed the central theme of these images were) I would have.
The third exhibition we went to seemed to be the main one of the biennial. The cyanotype and therefore 'blue' theme of the biennial all revolved around this exhibit. I appreciated the portraiture featured in the exhibition more than anything else, as I have a personal love towards portraiture, and the spotlight on the people affected by Brexit really meant something to me.
The next exhibition we went to was located inside a church, and the images were taken by Harley Weir. I have a personal love for Harley Weirs' work, her images of Young Thug for Dazed are some of my favourite images ever taken. The images were printed on large sheets which were suspended on the two ceilings for each floor of the church. I loved the way they were exhibited, the transparency of the sheets made it quite out of the ordinary, and added to the depth of the images. In terms of the images themselves, I loved how Weir captured the traces of life, without actually showing much.