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Couple of months ago a friend asked me, what is culture?
Few days later on, he offered a cold beer and asked me again. I hesitated to reply both times. I think that he mentioned, wondering, those early humans in caves drawing hunting scenes on the walls. Of course, I thought, this was culture. All systems of ideas and practices; all different beliefs and norms are culture(s)… And if anyone attempts to make distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, as if some type of culture is not really culture, this is no more than a cultural imposition itself. Incidentally, but not surprisingly, a distinction that is traditionally loved by both conservative and left viewpoints…
Culture is nevertheless relational. I wanted to point out this. It makes sense in relation to something else and other… thus, we may need to talk about cultures rather than culture… But then I forgot all about his question, lost - as usually - in the multiple threads starting out of another little and ’simple’ question… I am simply not sure what culture is…
Only recently, I came across a published editorial by Ivan Mecl, which made me think about it again and which I want to share here. It was published in the latest issue of Umelec, an international art and culture magazine (English version, Vol. 12, 1-2008, published by Divus.cz)
All photographs accompanying this article are taken during one of my recent ‘cultural’ trips to London.
“We work like old people, yet we behave like children more than ever before. We surround ourselves with mobile miracles, and therefore we have no idea what we are dealing with. We try to live in safety, and yet we do not know what it means to be safe. Many of us have lost time, but acquired “things.” We love “things” and their names sound nice to us. We love them, but they do not love us. We are impressed by their being changed, and unhappy by their loss. We are unhappy and with no time to spare from unrequited love, and always on the move.
[Tate Modern: 'The moment art changed forever'... But what moment exactly was that? Now, then, when?]
So let’s forget about culture. We don’t know what it means. The word culture is at the end of its meamimg-making history, because it has become a crutch for all that is frivolous. Why have a ministry for some abstract culture, we have beer culture, table culture, legal culture, legislative culture, and all kinds of mold and yogurt cultures too. Culture without qualification is fraud.
[Tate Modern: Cafe culture. Welcome, thank you... The cafe (in both Tate Museums) was more than a state of the art establishment competing for popularity against the exhibitions in the other rooms]
Art is trying to become science. It deals with philosophy, sociology, and psychology, and desires to be a pedagogical resource too. It wants to be political, yet maintain the charisma of the underground (that is, by being non-political). It wants to be a commodity. It makes fun of pop culture, a society that desires property, and it exhorts humility while at the same time consuming high-profile grants and taking over entire exhibit halls for its presentation. Contemporary art wants to be everything but still remain unique. Because art itself has little meaning-there is too much of it.
[London streets: rose, tea and appricot tart in Soho]
Contemporary artists are like Switzerland. They are like a country that wishes to remain neutral in the game, while siding with the winning team no matter who that is. Artists need not know a lot, yet they wish to comment on all contemporary phenomena. There is no area where contemporary artists do not stick their noses, but should they act in error, they simply claim artistic immunity. The only concept they are afraid of is art that wishes to fulfil and not make mistakes.
[London streets: advertising slowness in a fast city]
A thought process without tangible results might as well be called laziness. Today, laziness is unforgivable. Activeness is the universal solution for contemporary society; it does not pay to stay in one place. True passivity requires courage.
A living man speaks. A clever man writes. A dead man is silent; a dead, lazy man.
Giving up the term culture offers hope of finding meaning.”
(photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2008 All rights reserved)
Untitled photograph (nude 2) by Christos Stavrou © 2008
I wish I could send you a chocolate Jesus, maybe that abandoned one which they failed to exhibit last year in New York… But in the end, I guess you’ll be equally satisfied with few mint chocolates in a box and a photograph of an almost chocolate body… It is my easter present of course. Chocolates and one sudden thought, if my bath is running hot enough, make me realise that you are always around here.
* * *
“How did beauty begin? Earth-cult, suppressing the eye, locks man in the belly of mothers. There is, I insist, nothing beautiful in nature. Nature is primal power, coarse and turbulent. Beauty is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature.” (from the book Sexual Personae by C. Paglia © 1990).
* * *
Chocolate Jesus by Tom Waits:
Soon after I took this photo above, standing by the entrance of Leeds University, and as I was waiting for a sudden wave of rain to pass - among shiny bikes and a man whose posture and reflection had intrigued me… well, very soon after that a security guard came out from his box running quickly towards me.
He bombarded me with questions, who I am and what am I taking pictures of… My mind was still wandering in search of aesthetic pleasures; how to find the best angle, selecting shutter speed and aperture. I was not prepared and got surprised from his sudden attack. I simply said, I take a photo of bikes and a back-lit silhouette… (Should an aspiring conceptual photographer ever admit these casual things, I thought…)
But the security guard was not friendly. He insisted making questions. I noticed his threatening body language and persistent eye-contact in order to intimidate. Later he revealed that he used to work for some kind of special forces. His glorious and authoritative past, who knows why he was dismissed, was obviously filling him up with pride and nostalgia.
The treatment was unacceptable. After all I had been running the University’s Photosociety for two years in the recent past and we always used to practice making rounds in the campus. Not to mention the hundreds of graduates taking pictures of each other around those areas very regularly. Maybe it was about the beard in my face and my foreign accent didn’t help either… (Should I start shaving every time before using my camera outdoors, I thought…).
But he even used all sorts of lies and excuses trying to intimidate me, about how a special licence is required from the media services (something they denied later when I asked them), about his official orders to follow this procedure with everyone, even threats about calling the police were thrown to me… I replied that yes, he’s welcomed to call the police and look very silly when try to explain the reason of calling them. But the whole incident was not simply redicilous and patronising, it was also offending and very upsetting.
This happened two summers ago. I’m afraid though things don’t get better rather worst. The Metropolitan Police (click at the poster below) has just launched its five-week counter-terrorism campaign asking members of the public to report any suspicious behaviour. Yes, you guessed well. Taking photographs is a suspicious behaviour.
It seems that now you can - or have to - call the authorities every time you feel reporting a suspicious photographer. What exactly is suspicious, what is an ‘odd’ photograph? Well, not easy to answer… Sometimes an act appears odd just because someone looks odd and different, or because of our own preconceptions. And anyway, everyone has their own ideas about it, it cannot really be defined… But, in fact, this is probably the point: To spy and report each other! The poster states it clearly: Report it and “Let experienced officers decide what action to take.”
I know. Many readers have already began wondering in despair: Isn’t this campaign an open invitation to arbitrary and/or selective abuse? Isn’t this another badly disguised excuse for further erosion of our freedoms? Actually, isn’t this quite naive in its assumed counter-terrorist potential, when considering its adverse social effect by increasing fear and paranoia, and posing a high risk of weakening the social bonds, is therefore rather undermining than strengthening the sense of security?
Fear and paranoia.
Remember these words. These were the underlying forces of the security guard’s over-reaction against me, and that was what in turn he wanted to install upon me. Now, with even a seemingly official support in place, the absurdity is reinforced… Photographers of this country be aware and prepared. And resist the identification of terror.
The scary, and final, thought is that these practices remind how the Gestapo used to operate in Nazi Germany. Unlike the general belief, the Gestapo was not a huge and omnipotent organisation. As historian Robert Gellatel (see wikipedia) has shown, it was mainly made up by clerical workers and bureaucrats, who “were for the most part dependent upon denunciations for information about what was happening in German society. The willingness of ordinary Germans to denounce one another supplied the Gestapo with the information that determined who the Gestapo arrested.”
* * *
On Tuesday 11 March 2007, 6pm, there is a relevant and interesting public talk taking place in the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU.
The title is: “How Safe Do You Feel: Surveillance, Photographers, and the Privatisation of Public Space Post 9/11“
It is presented by freelance documentary photographer, writer and researcher, Dr. John Perivolaris (click at his photo above to visit work from his recent documentary project). The seminar is open to everyone and here is the abstract of the seminar as published in the website of the hosting University:
“On the streets of cities in the United States and Europe we are witnessing a dramatic proliferation of surveillance cameras trained on citizens’ every move through increasingly privatised public spaces. For example, the average Londoner is daily caught on camera 300 times. But, while the citizen is constantly watched, they are increasingly restricted from photographing those same spaces. What is the place of independent photography and image-making of public space post-9/11? How are photographers to resist the plethora of restrictions to which they are now subject in the name of security? Is the right to watch swiftly becoming a monopoly of the state? Is democratic citizenship also now a struggle for the right to see as well as to be seen?”
* * *
At the same time that these important questions are posed here, in another country Greece, left over surveillance equipment from the Olympic Games, costing over $250 million, has divided the country over its use to spy citizens. As reported by the BBC (see below), the emerging debate is around not only the question whether Greece will be following Britain’s example of spying its citizens, but whether it can resist the powerful march of the cameras. The costly surveillance equipment has taken its own reified form of existance. Note that Olympics are coming to Britain in few years time.
Leeds under construction. The city deconstructed.
Photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved
Untitled photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
“In the modern way of seeing, reality is first of all appearance - which is always changing. A photograph records appearance. The record of photography is the record of change, of the destruction of the past. Being modern (and if we have the habit of looking at photographs, we are by definition modern), we understand all identities to be constructions. The only irrefutable reality - and our best clue to identity - is how people appear.”
Untitled photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
“Photography is, first of all, a way of seeing. It is not seeing itself.
It is the ineluctably ‘modern’ way of seeing - prejudiced in favor of projects of discovery and innovation.
This way of seeing which now has a long history, shapes what we look for and used to noticing in photographs.”
Untitled photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
“The modern way of seeing is to see in fragments. It is felt that reality is essentially unlimited, and knowledge is open-ended. It follows that all boundaries, all unifying ideas have to be misleading, demagogic; at best, provisional; almost always in the long run, untrue. To see reality in the light of certain unifying ideas has the undeniable advantage of giving shape and form to our experience. But it also - so the modern way of seeing instructs us - denies the infinite variety and complexity of the real. Thereby it represses our energy, indeed our right, to remake what we wish to remake - our society, our selves. What is liberating, we are told, is to notice more and more.”
[Excerpts from Susan Sontag's essay 'Photography: A Little Summa' found in her recently published book At the Same Time (2007), New York, Farrar Straus Giroux]
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.
I like photography because it is open to silence. A waiting place, unnamed and inviting. In the last meetings I don’t hear much, like it’s never really my turn to talk. I miss the warmth of a colder and simpler stare. When we both know, (we all know). When we don’t repeat. Why use mouths to make so much noise? I wish I could leave but can’t think of another place. So, I’m waiting.
Untitled photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
“There is nowhere but here. There are not two places, there are not two prisons. It’s my parlour, where I wait for nothing. I don’t know where it is, I don’t know what it’s like. that’s no business of mine. I don’t know if it’s big, or if it’s small, or if it’s closed, if it’s open… Open on what? There is nothing else, only it. Open on the void , open on the nothing… Open on the silence, looking out on the silence, straight out - why not?”
Untitled photograph by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved
“All this time on the brink of silence, I knew it! On a rock, lashed to a rock, in the midst of silence. Its great swell rears towards me, I’m streaming with it. (It’s an image: those are words.) It’s a body, It’s not I - I knew it wouldn’t be. I’m not outside, I’m inside, I’m in something. I’m shut up: the silense is outside. Nothing but this voice and the silence all round. No need of walls? Yes we must have walls: I need walls, good and thick. I need a prison (I was right), for me alone. I’ll go there now, I’ll put me in it.”
From Samuel Beckett’s novel The Unnamable (1953)
Photograph by Camilla Hill, Portobello, London © 2007 All rights reserved
Part One
‘Beware of trains’ by Christos Stavrou © 2007
I have received a comment about this picture: “It’s very interesting how you make all these pretty colours seem strange and threatening. Combined with a cryptic message like this the effect is even more striking.”
Sometimes, I wonder loudly about the meanings of a photograph. Here, I recognise the muted primary colours which enhance uncomfortable feelings and a vantage point that sets the viewer in a precarious position. But was it really that, the psychological state described in the comment above, what I have tried to communicate? Maybe, but yet, is it only or exactly that which lies beneath and above the making of this image, before and after its showing? It seems futile this effort to pinpoint a unique and accurate meaning. It’s unnecessary. After all, and so often, people come with comments about my photos which surprise me, which without being foreign to what I have already sensed, they do express a reality even richer than my own initial comprehension.
So, if all is about various interpretations in the minds of the viewers, I need to ask: Is what really matters - in the end - to find the right people to show your pictures.. those who can, and would, read and decode your images, and even invest new meanings upon them?
And something else, what kind of consequences do we face now, all of us making what is called documentary photography? What about those old debates and struggles between self-expression and objectivity?
Part Two
“Fish Story” Koreatown, Los Angeles by Allan Sekula © 1992
“I should not have to argue” writes Allan Sekula in his essay Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (1976/78) “that photographic meaning is relatively indeterminate; the same picture can convey a variety of messages under different presentational circumstances. Consider the evidence offered by bank holdup cameras. Taken automatically, these pictures could be said to be unpolluted by sensibility, an extreme form of documentary. If the surveillance engineers who developed these cameras have an esthetic, it is one of raw, technological instrumentality. ‘Just the facts ma’am.’ But a courtroom is a battleground of fictions. What is it that a photograph points to?
A young white woman holds a submachine gun. The gun is handled confidently, aggressively. The gun is almost dropped out of fear. A fugitive heiress. A kidnap victim. An urban guerrilla. A willing participant. A case of brainwashing. A case of rebellion. A case of schizophrenia. The outcome, based on the ‘true’ reading of the evidence, is a function less of ‘objectivity’ than of political maneuvering. Reproduced in the mass media, the picture might attest to the omniscience of the state within a glamorized and mystifying spectacle of revolution and counter-revolution. But any police photography that is publicly displayed is both a specific attempt at identification and a reminder of police power over ‘criminal elements’. The only ‘objective’ truth that photographs offer is the assertion that somebody or something -in this case, an automated camera - was somewhere and took a picture. Everything else, everything beyond the imprinting of a trace, is up for grabs.”
Part three
“The Magnum and Newsweek photographer Luc Delahaye recently declared publicly that he was no longer a photojournalist. He was an artist.” (fromThe Guardian, 31 January 2004)
Who is Luc Delahaye? As implied in this interview, a photographer influenced by the financial and artistic crisis that photojournalism is currently going through. And he searched for control and his own answers, through a range of experiments, tests and self-made questions (which even brought him in opposition with the grand Cartier-Bresson tradition).
“History” Jenin Refugee Camp by Luc Delahaye © 2002
Luc Delahaye first became known for covering wars. However, in 2001 he began the series History, which deals with issues of documentary photography. The latter is all about context; the place it is shown, the way of presentation, the surrounding information. The transmitted message is heavily influenced by such factors. In History, Delahaye intentionally presents traditional themes of documentary photography out of its normal context, thereby questioning their meaning as documents and generally the meaning of photography.
His photographs are enormously enlarged panoramic images of various war zones (see above) and staged historical events -such as conferences and events organised by the communication industries, which are hung in art galleries. Representation and truth become a constant question, although the viewer recognises these photographs as having a historical nature.
Delahaye’s work points out the artifice of photography -even news photography, which is as fictional as painting. It allows us even to think that contemporary historical events may be constructed and run not only for profit but for the media as well. War itself can be seen as such an event in a massive and immoral scale.
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.
One of my favourite passages in film history, yet not a very well known.
Charles’s dialogue with his psychiatrist from Robert Bresson’s Le Diable Probablement (The Devil, Probably, 1977) reads like a poem of disillusionment.
In Charles’s life education, physical love, religion, psychanalysis, one by one, are rejected. Politics too.
“Governments are short sighted…” announces a bus passenger. Another says not to blame governments, “it’s the masses who determine events”. Someone then asks, “So, who is it that makes a mockery of humanity? Who’s leading us by the nose?” And the first man replies with subtle irony “The Devil, probably…”
Few years ago, a series of my photos (see an example below) were inspired by this film.
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.
Sousveillance is the recording or monitoring of real or apparent authority figures by others, particularly those who are generally the subject of surveillance. Steve Mann, who coined the term, describes it as watchful vigilance from underneath.
When I was recently covering a music gig following a local friendly political protest, I decided to photograph those who were photographing all of us all the time (see above).
Later I discovered that there is even a FlickR group called Surveillance Mirror from which I have borrowed the explanations of the terms. It is worth the visit, both for the the
written posts -concerned with democracy and freedom, as well as for the photos. They often do elevate it to art, as the photo at the left demonstrates (photo by Dr John2005)
The term sousveillance stems from the contrasting French words sur; meaning above; and sous; meaning below, surveillance denotes the eye-in-the-sky watching from above, where as sousveillance denotes bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings), or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or architectures doing the watching).
In Britain we are officially the most watched people on earth. If you live in London, the chances are you are caught on CCTV about 300 times a day.
In a recent competition called ‘new ways of looking’ I sent that photo above from Bradford’s train station, in which I had photographed a massive police poster depicting an officer photographing the public. At the moment of shooting the photo, I smiled thinking that I was returning the favour.. And I was wondering if the poster’s self-controlling message had ever reached the man with the suitcase sitting on the bench away, appearing with his back and shoulders down as having a long and tiring trip ahead of him…
The idea of an inherent resistance to the top-down application of this type of power, and its disciplinary and normalising effects (with tools, such as ‘the gaze’ which target the mind and not the body any more) can be found in Foucault’s work. Especially in his classic Discipline and Punish and the selected writings and interviews titled Power/Knowledge.
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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)
© 2007 Christos Stavrou. All rights reserved
em·pa·thy [em-puh-thee]
pə
–noun
| 1. | the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. |
| 2. | the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself: By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self. |
[Origin: 1900–05; < Greek empátheia affection, equiv. to em + path- (base of páschein to suffer)]
<Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy>
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.
Hi there… again,
thanks for the lovely evening :)
I had a nice white beer (see photo) on the way home and thought that
it’s gonna be a great year
Also to let you know.. that I checked and Barry White is really dead
And you know, about saying that you don’t understand some of my pictures, it is a compliment I guess.. pictures which are easily understood, the same easily are probably erased from our memory.
Aaah.. and the pictures with the skulls.. well.. these are from a specially designed church in a village somewhere in East Europe… Sssssh.. we don’t want many people to know that!
Universal Church #11 © Christos Stavrou
PS: Check the attached photo, one of my favourite beers.. same as tonight.. but in another place another time.. same good.
Hoegaarden © Christos Stavrou
Leeds, Olympus OM-4, Zuiko 100/2.8 © 2006 Christos Stavrou
What are the clouds? An architecture of chance?
[...]
Maybe the cloud is emptiness returning,
just like the man who watches it this morning.
Jorge Luis Borges, 1996
London, Olympus OM-4, Zuiko 55/1.2 © 2006 Christos Stavrou
Mykonos, from a trip few years ago (Above & Below: 2004 © Christos Stavrou)
I want to wake up tomorrow morning, open the door and have a coffee at one of the coffee-shops in the port.
Then, let the breeze and the heat touch my face, maybe have a cigarette or two, and order a beer with seafood, probably octupus cooked in the sun. Perhaps a fresh spinach-pie with feta cheese from the local bakery as well… and much later a parfait ice cream reading the boring news in the paper.
The first days of the smoking ban in UK [edit: in fact, England] have gone and life goes on… It’s not surprising; people adapt as they always do, almost in any conditions, they rationalise and go on. People working in a nearby building told me that according to the new rules, they need to go 25 meters away from the building’s entrance in order to smoke. ”But isn’t there another building?” I asked…
Smoking is associated with living 10 years less and is considered a major contributing factor to health problems. And yes, at last we can fully provide for non-smokers now, but the question remains, why are there not any, just few, places to serve smokers? First we suffocated the non-smokers, now let’s suffocate the smokers?
Unfortunately, following the recent UK political trend: one more liberty is to go. And none seems to pay attention. Difficult also here to ignore the highly patronising and selective mentality of the new measure and its followers, disguising the attack on personal choices to simple -even if unhealthy- things in life! (What about all other things that are killing us? Does the list end anywhere? Or we should forbid everything in the name of health and safety!?).
The question in personal level becomes even more painful; under an increasing barrage of normative rules, does self-determination lead to self-destruction?
A growing tendency. Cig break in the streets (© 2007 Christos Stavrou)
Interestingly, it was not long ago that the socially stigmatised smoking of the present was a socially promoted habbit and behaviour, from cinema heros to prime ministers. And now smoking is transforming again, to a vague and grotesque act of individual liberty…
Left: No smoking (© 2007 Christos Stavrou)
And it seems that a society creates problems , such as of the existing smokers, only when there’s a decided action ready to be imposed, within the crucial problematic of regulating populations. In other words, is the public service of few smokers such a social problem -that has to be totally denied? Or, smoking just became a problem, when governments realised that the huge income generated from cigarette taxes could be replaced and actually increased (plus higher productivity rates) by a new health prevention policy? In order to enforce the latter new social problems needed to be defined. Other similar ‘new’ problems will follow (for example, watch out for the growing discourse about obesity)…
Ok, let’s forget all this and enjoy an arresting photograph of the writer Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues by Henri Cartier-Bresson (Italy 1933)
Two different places, but the same season.
From north England to Czech Republic in spring.
All rights reserved © 2007 Christos Stavrou