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Leeds under construction. The city deconstructed.
Photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved
Photo by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
Photograph from a degree ceremony in Leeds University.
So, we are removing the barriers. We build special ramps by the side for all those who can’t walk the stairs. We reserve special spaces for those who were traditionally deemed as the unworthy surplus of educational systems… We publish books in braille and use complicated devices to communicate with all those who were thought incommunicable for us…
We publish even more useful, and colourful, prospectus and reports and photographs that proudly demonstrate our achievements… And now that all these newcomers are arriving to receive their diplomas and awards, still very few but they are coming, and still our awards indeed, we count their faces as the face of our own new progress…
But I wonder, did anybody tell them, those in the safe and proud side, that they should count instead all those who could not come, those who couldn’t make it… all those who actually are not here to be counted?…
Photo by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
People write poems while walking between bus stops. I take photographs. While waiting, the air becomes cold or a soft breeze, the light is changing, the day is passing. While waiting, you notice things. People’s faces, their tireness or anticipation. Maybe they come from work, probably they go home. And the camera behaves the same sober or drunk, playful or insular like its owner. Photography is a performance while waitng.
All photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved.
Almscliff Crag is a popular destination for walkers, learner rock climbers and short day-trip travellers in Yorkshire. It’s less than half hour drive from Leeds and so gets quite busy. A strange and impressive, and certainly challenging, rock formation on top of a short hill…
From the top of the crag someone has a superb view over the Yorkshire Moores, green valleys and lush fields, spotted with black and white cows, small box-houses, or even long smokey chimneys of power stations. But to take a photograph from up there is not so easy… unless you know how to talk to the winds… like Tom, who is seen below (the same Tom who has created this blog’s photo header) .
The rock stands through history. It almost freezes time. A remain of natural history, a continuous part of human history. Someone could see several inscriptions of names and years upon its surface, from visitors of the past, not alive now. What did these people feel and think? Was the landscape view the same for them? How free and optimistic did that couple feel, who wrote their names here just one year before the start of the bloodiest World War?
[All photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved]
The New Model Army keeps touring and recording constantly for over 26 years. I remember very well their first albums. I played them so often in my turntable, back in my old home when I was collecting vinyl records and used to work in record shops. And there was a track, Side A - track 3 from the Ghost of Cain LP, which people played too many times and then had to search for a new copy all the time…
NMA is a music band not easily classified. Punk, folk, indie, gothic, even acoustic or metal forms and influences surface in their music… As this article writes, they should be recognised as “a very versatile underground cult rock band with many different musical roots.” But what makes NMA more special is their poetic lyrics, often with political and humanitarian messages. This is Here comes the war (1993):
Today, as you listen to this song
Another 394,000 children were born into this world
They break like waves of hunger and desire upon these eroded shores
Carrying the curses of history and a history yet unwritten
The oil burns in thick black columns, the buzz saws echo through the forest floor
They shout give us our fair share, give us justice
Here comes the war [..] You screamed give us Liberty or give us Death
Now you’ve got both, what do you want next ?
Here comes the war - put out the lights on the Age of Reason.
The band was recently refused entry to US and had to cancel their arranged tour. “We have been informed that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has taken precisely 20 weeks (instead of the usual 8 or 9) to DENY our I-129 Non Immigrant Visa Applications,” NMA manager Tommy Tee said in a statement. “I can only apologize on behalf of the band, as I know how much work has gone into all these shows. For our part, having spent the past four years trying to rebuild the fan base and reputation of the band in North America after a long absence, we are bitterly disappointed. “
“We’re really puzzled by this refusal to issue visas,” frontman Justin Sullivan added. “Over the last few years, we’ve worked a lot in America, building up to this tour with a well-received album, good press and good ticket sales. And during this time we’ve encountered no problems with the authorities and have been received with courtesy and hospitality throughout the country.”
NMA has managed to sound contemporary all this time along. Take for example, the song Spirit of the Falklands from 1982. Back then, war became a useful card in the political game. Thatcher in Britain and Galtieri in Argentina send their countries to war and invested on patriotism shifting the focus from their deep internal social and economical problems. And the winner of course not only manipulated the social agenda but reversed their unpopularity…
It seems that NMA’s meaningful stance may bring to them occasional troubles, like those sudden visa problems. O tempora o mores! But it also ties together a strong and faithful audience beyond material national borders.
Yesterday, NMA played in Leeds Metropolitan University. I found a place in the front line to take photos. A brave decision!… I literally squeezed myself against the metal bars, was pushed and shoved in the rhythms of the dancing waves and the body frenzy behind me, struggled to capture some stable moments and protect my gear!
The interaction between the band and the people was very warm and alive. Justin Sullivan’s energy and body language was reflected back by almost messianic reactions of faith and joy by people in the crowd climbing on top of others to sing along.
Photo by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved (Click on image for full view)
The University of Leeds expands through the north of the city. But, what do we see? A major educational institution is perhaps the answer… but what else?… Can we see the layers of reality unfolding over, the same way as an amalgam of different buildings from separate epochs compete for space?
Do we see a leading force in teaching and research? Yes, but what are its aims? Knowledge of what and for what? Is it there for supplying skilled labour to local and international businesses? Is it imagined as a kind of garden for individuals to flourish, or a well thought and managed sausage-factory?
Consider coldly, and rather impartially, who takes the decisions and who influences its strategies and plans? What is its role in the society; is it part of a process serving social needs -and who defines those of course, or elitist aspirations and stakeholders’ interests? Is it part of a wider movement toward the democratisation of education and well-being, or reproduces the existing structures of social power and control? Maybe we should start from the simple question, who has access to this institution, and who hasn’t…
Photo by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved (Click on image for full view)
In 1896, the first female student began a course here, who, according to Wikipedia, studied Modern Literature and Education - itself quite a feminised subject as we may comment now. So, have things changed? Considering of course that we want social change and inclusion, rather than just rhetoric. Is social class, and gender and ethnicity and dis-ability and all the other social barriers finally entities of the past, or are they still reproduced? What about young people with a history of mental health difficulties or with a criminal record, do have they access?… What about the millions of international students whose parents can not afford the £25,000 approximate fee (without counting other costs) for a three years degree?…
Maybe it is not a question of ‘either/or‘, maybe it’s a question of ‘both/and‘. And it remains for the viewer to make sense of some form of reality through the pragmatic and modernised new rhetoric. So, can we see through?
Late night party in downtown Leeds
Photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved.
Dinu Li is a UK based artist born in Hong Kong and now living in Manchester. Today at 5pm he will be giving a talk at 42 New Briggate Gallery in Leeds, looking at the work he is currently showing, ‘The Mother of All Journeys‘.
It’s free to attend and will include a session of questions and answers, as well as plenty of Chinese beer and green tea. I know because I was there and enjoyed them few weeks ago during the exhibition’s opening!
[Dinu Li's exhibition in Leeds © 2007 Christos Stavrou]
Dinu Li’s work has been described as one that addresses the construction of individual and collective identity in an increasingly connected, but at the same time fragmented global village. The Mother of all Journeys is an exploration into the memories of the artist’s 80-year-old mother. Through a series of colour photographs Li charts her journey from China to England.
[photograph from 'The Mother of All Journeys' © Dinu Li]
The exhibition consists of some impressive, high quality colour prints of large and smaller sizes depicting places where the artist’s mother and family have been. They are accompanied by few personal belongings and several pieces of text on paper, written by an old type-writer (another referent to the interplay of old and new, now and then). For example, near the photograph shown above it is written: “By coincidence, your dad and I both had jobs making underwear. He worked in a factory stitching English words into the waistbands on men’s pants. I would bring work home, cutting loose treads from bras. Chun Yu was the one being breast-fed at the time. Sometimes his legs would kick out, causing me to cut the bra straps.”
A warm and deeply human story unfolds in the exhibition room. The viewer is called to connect the pieces, as in a puzzle. Through traces of time and space, through someone’s experiences and feelings. Photographs, texts and sound, (a music theme keeps playing in the background), are elements which never reveal a straightforward reality but rather in co-operation with the viewer’s imagination succeed in reconstructing, or rather reinterpreting, time and personality within the individual trajectory of a loved person.
Through the images we revisit unique spaces in the mother’s journey. We can view them as they are now. A mental transformation of those spaces takes place. It’s a trip backwards in time. Ultimately a trip depending on us. The texts help us to connect with those visual representations of present and past, what we see and what we imagine, but what they evoke has an independent existence in itself. We interact and learn, both personal and collective, stories of diaspora, ethnicity and family. We become active readers and listeners, not just distant viewers, almost like the family’s far relatives. We become participants because, after all, our experiences may partially overlap with what is revealed in front of us. One piece of text reads in a familiar to me tone: “Nobody dared try their English out at the cornerstore. Eventually you ran over and came back with a pack of salted peanuts.“
[Dinu Li's exhibition in Leeds © 2007 Christos Stavrou]
At the background there is a small TV set and a song is playing repetitively. The same song can be heard through a CD player mounted on the wall. At first, it appears as a pop soundtrack from the 60s. It adds to the dreaming quality of the exhibition. But also it invites the visitors to construct the identity of Dinu Li’s mother. Was that her favourite song? Maybe it was his mother’s and father’s special song?… Somewhere there is another text that could be relevant, the careful viewer would have noticed, one where Dinu Li’s mother describes her engagement and refers to her new house as socially distinct, being the only one which had a record-player…
The exhibition reveals social divisions and cultural rituals intertwined with individual experience and personal memory. Humans do not appear over-determined by social processes. Little moments become humorous and lyrical. The interaction and eventful meeting of multiple signs of ethnicity, culture, and migration, but always under a framework of personal perspective -including the viewer, becomes one of the main characteristics. The exhibition song, for example, clearly reminds an old and famous western musical but after few seconds or minutes someone realises that it’s sang in Chinese. Issues of the relational, both inclusionary and exclusionary nature of culture are raised. The visitor becomes a consious part of this of course. There is a photo of the entrance of a cinema theatre. It makes you think whether this is Hong-Kong, or Britain, or somewhere else. And the nearby caption, that “Your brothers were taking you to see movies of Tony Curtis” points out to the global village we increasingly inhabit. But keep reading the same text and it offers a personal and emotional dimension too: “I would always take you to see love stories. Whenever the stars kissed I had to cover your eyes.”
This kind of ‘familiarity’ of the visual and textual material, the interactive quality of the presentation, and the feelings of love, care and endurance that the whole work brought into surface, were for me what I found as so successful and rewarding in this exhibition. The intercrossing of time feels life and the intercrossed spaces sense culture.
[Dinu Li in his exhibition in Leeds © 2007 Christos Stavrou]
At some point, I managed to find the artist alone and ask few questions, a conversation that I’ll try to recreate here:
First, I wondered how important was the thinking about the compositions to his project. He said, not that much, more important was for him to be in the right place, which was not always easy. “I usually had to ask my mother: was that the right tree mom?.. Or the other one over there, etc..”
“Yet, what did you particularly try to include or exclude”, I asked again. He replied that he mainly tried to exclude any people from his frames, the viewers could read different things, if there were people in the scenes. Another question regarded what equipment did he use and why. He pointed out that the whole project started by finding one very small and old square photograph of his mother, a picture that himself did not know about. In order to reproduce that square format he used a Hasselblad.
[photograph from 'The Mother of All Journeys' © Dinu Li]
“I found a photo of my mother in her things” Dinu Li said. ‘There she was, a young woman holding my brother as a baby. It was the first time I saw that picture.. I hadn’t seen my mother looking this way before…”
So, I continued, your idea for this project started by you realising that your mother had not many physical evidence of her past but memories… and then you travelled with her to so many different places, recreating reality in a way…
Yes, it was all in her mind.. Dinu explained. Many stories of her past, our past.. I knew much of it already from stories that she had told me.. In one level, this project is about the journey of her life, in another level we may question if what is shown here is reality…
I made a final thought that didn’t express that day. Dinu Li’s work, as Roland Barthes did in Camera Lucida, asserts the referential power of photography. And as another Barthes insists of his mother’s knowable presence in the world based on a photograph he found of her as a child. But he develops and builds upon it by revisiting the traces of the past and the places she has been. It is rather another accomplishment of what Barthes describes as achieving “utopically, the impossible science of the unique being” (Barthes, 1981, p.71).
[from Dinu Li's exhibition in Leeds © 2007 Christos Stavrou]
The Mother of All Journeys (which accompanies Opera North’s production of Madam Butterfly) will run until 10 November 2007, at 42 New Briggate Gallery, Leeds.
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Photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved.
After a train trip of about 20 minutes toward the North of England, Leeds’s neighbor and very far cousin city emerges: York. Such different are their social histories of past and present that the return ticket price of £9.10 (an obvious rip off) feels almost justified…
Click here or at the picture above for a link to my photographs from a recent trip to York. It is part, unrefined yet, of a wider photographic project which is currently in progress, about the changing faces of the English North cities and the diverse spirit of experience within them.
All photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved.
I know we have almost a whole month until we are to officially celebrate Halloween, on the night of 31st of October, but the shops around us have a different idea. From little tempting chocolates which look like curved pumpkins to headless ’scary’ plastic men, a day’s shopping in downtown Leeds can hardly miss the Halloween commercial frenzy…
Not that the ubiquitous advertising has ever been desperate just for public holidays in order to grab people’s attention. Every case, such as a new club night, seems to demand and justify something impressive.. As far as I know, no the photo below does not show a military coup in Leeds…
But yes, you have probably guessed well, those little Santas and his deers are already out there…
[All images by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved]
Exploring the random pockets of green around my new neighborhood. An old and abandoned quarry has stolen one of my days. Horsforth has a long history of stone quarrying - its stone was even used in the building of Kirkstall Abbey in the 12th century.
It was almost night when found my way out.
(All images by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved. View them larger here)
Julie Fiala, a female performance artist, exchanges her favourite things for yours. This is Julie’s first major solo project in Leeds following her art studies and work in Leeds during the last three years.
Julie has been working in art projects which are relevant to local people, including among others: old people, who as she told me ‘they have so many important things to say’ (and so much I agree), with safety professionals -when she installed thirty red couches into Leeds’ Hyde Park in 2005, and a Dundonian hill-walker who is also a Marxist.
But this is her last and final project in Leeds! Apparently Julie (see photo above) has been wearing red during the last three years and now, just before she leaves Leeds for good, she has decided to exchange her favourite red things for your red things…
The whole project takes place at the ArtMarket in Merrion Centre in Leeds. A very interesting choice of place indeed, in the old and rather forgotten part of the Merrion Centre shopping centre, among stalls which sell stamps, second-hand clothes and a wide variety of exotic things, from Ethiopian sidama coffee to hidden from daylight vinyl records.
A mysterious and charming guest-artist (see photo above) has been collaborating with Julie in this project. Of course she wears red too. Try to guess where is from, you’ll never find it… Unfortunately, the project goes ahead for only three days, and you can catch up with both of them, and certainly ask ‘Why red?’ until tomorrow Saturday 22 September.
So, take your red things down to Julie’s place and exchange them for her red things. If you are lucky you may end up with some personally made jewelry or a cute red dress with matching shoes.. whereas at the same time fill up Julie’s suitcase with something exciting!
Oh, Julie also invites all visitors to a party in her house after the closing reception tomorrow at 5pm.
(All images by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved. View them larger here)
I have moved to a new neighborhood. I use the train now. Train stations become the spaces of my little escapes.
A photograph of photographs of the train station near my home. Under a certain light its ceilings are transformed into a new sky.
Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
I was in town. I had just read in a paper found in the train about this exhibition in a downtown Leeds church and decided to pay my respects.
Schizopolis consists of paintings, photographs and sculptures exploring the concept of the ideal and imagined modern city, comparing it to the reality of today’s urban environments. It was launched last week with an evening of art and music (see poster, left) and will go on until the 7th of October.
Entering the church I couldn’t fail to join the mood of spiritual awe and silent excitement, which follows the visual impact of falling ambient light in the wide-open and engulfing, as much as ordered, church space. The minimalist music in the background enhanced the experience. Whereas the tripods with their painted canvasses standing on top of the sitting benches, and the framed black & white photos with ominous and bleak captures of Leeds life, hanging off the huge round columns, added their peculiar and challenging element to the show.
I feel the marriage of art and churches is really promising; even if, as in this case, the installation may suffer from structural inconveniences which hinder viewing and the coherent flowing of meanings. The way the space and light was used often didn’t help and unfortunately, any ideas and subtleties sometimes appeared as stacked in chance. The lack of any detailed information about the artists and their concepts didn’t help my viewing either [edit: see full details in comments below, as provided by the organisers, thank you].
But overall, the exhibition was very interesting and how much liberty can be exercised in a church is debatable. I really don’t know.. but I could imagine a bolder similar exhibition in the future. If anything, I welcome the idea of a church transforming itself to a cultural refuge. A cultural space that is springing by, but in the end disassociates itself from its past dominant connotations.
It is a particular phenomenon I have found here in Leeds (and probably it’s happening elsewhere in England as well) that churches are used for other than their original intentions and religious meanings. For years I used to live near to a church that sells.. carpets and people keep inviting me to the trendy old-church night-club just by the Leeds University…
So, it was not so surprising, yet not less amazing, that this church was used for art and as I discovered it operates its own daily cafe as well (see photo above). It was busy, mostly with older people, it served no fancy coffee or food at all, and the strong yellow lights reflected on the shiny walls transfer someone into another era. But the smiles and the immediacy of the people there are not easily found in the main city streets and shops. This is for me real England.
Finally, I had the pleasure to meet one of the exhibiting painters, Rachel Savage (see above), and her ominous landscapes with tall and dark, leafless tree-trunks under a cold winter sun. We had a chat. Her metaphoric work was dealing with places so far and still so near to urban alienation. I discovered that she takes photographs of her themes as well, which intrigued me. I wanted to know what a different medium of expression offers to others: “Why do you need to paint them, then?” I asked, adding extra seriousness in my voice. She wasn’t sure, and so I insisted: “Is it painting just for the sake of painting?”
She shook her head, which blurred my photo… and simply replied “No, it’s not, but if I couldn’t paint I would have probably become insane.”
Photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved.
Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
What will be happening next? We need change and excitement.
The final lines from ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ a poem by greek poet Cavafy came to my mind:
“Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.“
[By Constantine Cavafy (1864-1933), translated by Edmund Keeley]
Yes, I just came back from our own Carnival here in Leeds, tired and smiling… As a friend says, it’s like Notting Hill just better!.. And of course I came back with few photographs to show you as well (please ask written permission for any use)
The history of Leeds West Indian Carnival goes quite back, first initiated in 1967 by a Leeds University student from St Kitts. It was the first Carnival of its kind in Britain.
The Carnival takes places in Chapeltown, a Leeds suburb and centre of the British Afro-Caribbean community, which during the years has experienced a range of social problems and stigma.
It’s probably worth noting here, that until the end of the 60’s racial discrimination in England was institutional and non-white immigrant populations were not allowed to freely participate in the house market.
This was the second time that I visited the Carnival. My pictures and comments from 
the first time, back in 2001, can be found here in this photo-essay. Back then, I had found it the Carnival of no fun, of hardly anyone smiling… such an ironic contradiction. I was really sceptical, after all, if all this was anything more than a consumerist one-day firework without any real effect in understanding difference and emphasise commonality. I’m not sure how much things have changed. I did feel though that things were more relaxed this time, but maybe for real change we need more time and more work from all of us.
But there was one more reason for my good mood. I found out that ‘Honeydrum’ the music band of some old friends were playing their samba there. Well.. I honestly think that it was one of their best performances including some great dance improvisations!… I do recommend to catch up with them in another festival, you can find more details in their website here.
All images by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved (written permission is required before any use)
What defines our individuality? Should people try to define their difference, an effort that can last a life and more, or copy and paste to survive… So many behaviours promise freedom and a firmly unique personality but do we really enter this social game of life as new players?
Everyone wants a little something.. everyone wants to be liked and loved. It’s so ironical that if you try to be loved in the face of your difference, most possible you’ll end up with a scared face…
I can imagine myself reading by accident all the books found in the living room of my new home and die.
All images © 2007 Christos Stavrou
I could hear music far off and blurry talks of people gathering through my open window. The wind has been so warm these days and brings with it all the sounds from places that I can’t see. They bounce and echo in the empty walls of my room, I’m packing to move.
When the first dark approached, later that evening, I left the tight walls behind me to search for what was going on in the park of my soon-to-be old neighborhood… Hyde Park in Leeds (Saturday 4 August 2007)
(All rights reserved © 2007 Christos Stavrou)
I woke up this morning to find a strange message… “I wish that the twang didn’t exist.. my apologies if you’re a fan!”
The Twang?.. pardon?… Oh yes, this is a new indie band from Birmingham which I had recently photographed, just few months ago, in a gig here in Leeds and then uploaded those pictures online.
It didn’t take long to find out that there’s quite an impressive polarisation going on about this band right now. On one side, raving critiques for what NME describes as “swaggering, big hearted rock’n'roll mischief from Birmingham.” They write songs, Time Out claims, “better, more exciting and fresher [...] than anyone else.” Just check their myspace profile. By the way, they were hailed by NME as Britain’s best new band And were second in BBC News website’s Sound of 2007.
On the other hand, it also seems that something in their music, or their street-smart lyrics and a reputation for rowdiness have created few.. haters for the ‘Brummie lads’ as well. Well, as frontman Phil Etheridge points out in the BBC website “I ain’t going to sing about rivers, man, I don’t live by a river - I live by a canal and there’s bikes in it” and “we just have a laugh, and obviously sometimes that might be a little bit more rowdy than you and your friends having a dinner party, but it’s only done in jest.”
I remember the gig in Leeds quite well (and that’s already a positive remark). It was fun and enjoyed it. Although, I also remember been convinced at some point that my camera and lenses will meet the end of their short life soon… getting baptised in those flying pints of beer in the air by excited party-goers!… Here’s some photos from The Twang at the Faversham, Leeds, 4 March 2007 (© Christos Stavrou. All Rights Reserved)
The passion and energy shown by frontman Phil Etheridge was captivating. I used a telephoto lens and a high 1600 ISO to capture a glimpse of it (© 2007 Christos Stavrou. All Rights Reserved)
Finally, few tips about shooting music concerts from my personal experience:
- Go early to find a suitable place and view-angle
- Use a lens hood to minimise lens flare and also help your precious glass from fingertips, liquids, etc.
- Being polite and co-operative with the stage-crew might offer you the chance to use some otherwise difficult to access spaces and viewpoints
- Use of high ISO will be essential, either in film or digital equipment. Concert pics with their many dark areas and their uneven lighting demand digital cameras with low noise in high ISOs and a rather high dynamic range. It is recommended, of course, to use fast lenses with large maximum aperture (my lenses used above had maximum aperture 2 and 2.8) to gain as much speed as possible.
- Even if, however, you are stuck with slow lenses, (such as many current zoom-lenses) or your camera’s unworkable high ISOs, you can still achieve adequate results by concentrating at your technique: Use a monopod (which is helpful in any case!) and anticipate the artist’s movement, so that you can click at the right posing moment
Hmm.. and something else which might be helpful to film users. There are many good films out there, especially 400 B&W films, which could be exposed in a higher ISO, such as 1600 giving you at least 2 extra stops of speed. Grain and contrast would be of course affected but the results could be very satisfactory. Extra time in the developing stage will be required to compensate for pushing the film. To find out the exact extra time that is to be applied, as well as appropriate agitation techniques, search the internet or ask the manufacturer for initial info. Nevertheless, practice and experimentation is essential, after which you would be able to create your own charts in order to achieve a desired aesthetic and technical result.
The advent of digital photography and the increasing number of people having access to it have, if anything else, given rise to hopes for a new process of democratisation (see for example one of my links to The Democratic Image blog). Although we should be very careful not to associate too easily the issue of greater access to visual representation (itself limited and fragmented in practice) with any greater access to political power and processes of decision-making, one area that seems to get a benefit from all that is the production and distribution of news. People are given new opportunities to visually record events, and as a new kind of independent reporters, or so called citizen journalists, to challenge the mainstream flow of news by corporate media and give voice, or, better to say, view to the own stories.
It is also a rather shared understanding, and certainly one I became convinced of since the public dissemination of Abu Ghraib photos, that photography has a powerful impact on society and the interpretation of reality.
I’m writing about all this, as I was recently informed of an incident in Hyde Park, the student area in Leeds. The police brutally and unnecessarily attacked, as it is claimed, some peaceful house party-goers in order to disperse them. The incident seems to be under investigation by an independent body now. But what grabbed my attention from the start was the relative quality and mainly the importance of photographic documents which were shown to me in order for those in the party to support their claim of officers lashing dogs and baton charging against them with no adequate reason.
Photographs such as those below gave me a graphic feeling and general indication of what was going on (photos by Callum Barker, Jess Woodall, and Nicky Crompton) :
The most striking picture was the following (photo by Callum Barker):
Whereas a more artistic tone is captured here (photo by Evan Harris):
The way that people will interpret the above story, despite these or any other pictures, may not change in the end. Stereotypes of students and vague ideals of law and order may be too dominant for some people when they judge things. However, I think the ability of the people there to capture those photos, just with their mobile phone cameras, enhanced their chance to have their complaint heard, both officially and publicly, as they attracted more attention and credit. I believe this story would have much less chance, if any at all, to find a place in the news or even to have a fair non-biased (but from both sides) representation, without its visual recordings. And if in the end it succeeds to strengthen accountability, it reinforces democratic processes too.
(For more details and photos, there is this facebook link: Survivors of the peaceful party on 19 Hessle Terrace and 20 Hessle Avenue)
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