Fieldstudy 16. from a Distance
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[1] FIELDSTUDY 16 FIELDSTUDY 16 FROM A DISTANCEREAS PAUL [3] FIELDSTUDY 16 FROM A FIELDSTUDY 16 DISTANCEREAS PAUL Millions of people pass through the Elephant and Castle and its maze of roundabouts without ever noticing the people who live there. It is a place to get through, a place on the way to somewhere else. Of course, it could be argued that there is a certain reality to all of this. After all, the Elephant has one of the most transitory populations in London. Many do not settle here for long. Even the people who live here are on the move. The buildings look sharp And a photographer who but the people are blurred could set the time exposure into traces of movement, as on her camera for a century if they were ghosts. I have or so would register little that something of a problem is permanent. This is a place with our fascination with with a continual history of long exposure photography. dramatic change: from the got to the point where they Slowing down the shutter bustling and fashionable can only see from a distance: speed captures what is 1930’s with its picture houses the sort of distance from permanent but obscures and mega-churches, through which you can’t see a face, what is transient. It is a the devastation of the Nazi meet the eyes of someone, technique can generate bombings, and on to the hear who they are, imagine all sorts of exciting visual construction of large scale who and what they love. All effects, especially in cities. modernist estates like the violence works with that sort It gives the impression of Heygate. As this estate and of distance; it depends upon movement and energy, others await demolition, not seeing things.” telling the story of a place and a new era of massive I am a newcomer to these on the go, a place that has redevelopment around the parts. Months ago I was direction and purpose. Elephant begins, it seems living in the City of London, The slow shutter speed that, from a historical deep in the engine room shares many of the same perspective too, change of global capitalism. Here values as late capitalism. is the only constant. The decisions continue to be It suggests a booming Elephant is continually and made that affect the entire economy, the dynamism of permanently liminal. world. At every moment, at busy lives, the restlessness Paul Reas tells a the press of a button on a of the successful urban completely different story. computer screen, billions of professional who always He reminds us that, however pounds, dollars and yen are has somewhere more transitory, the human face traded and moved around the important to be. Paul Reas of the Elephant cannot world. This creates another rejects this overly familiar and must not be blurred form of distance, for few trope, and rightly so. For the into invisibility. This is no of those who work in those long exposure photograph small matter. Take a very great glass palaces can see FROM A robs the urban landscape different but not unrelated the consequences of their of human faces. In such example. Rowan Williams, actions on individual lives. pictures, ordinary people in a moving reflection on Since the Occupy protests have anonymous walkthrough why he finds photographs and my resignation from DISTANCE parts in the great stage set of the falling Twin Towers of St Paul’s Cathedral, I have which is the city of London. 9/11 so morally problematic, travelled less than a couple Someone recently described suggests the following: of miles. But from the human the Shard as “a photo “Perhaps it has something perspective, it feels like I opportunity without a soul.” to do with how easily we have travelled into another Similarly, the long exposure do in fact concentrate on world entirely and one deeply photograph can easily dramatic pictures to spare unfamiliar to many of those capture the glamour of urban us from the personal reality. who work in the City. High life but is unable to recognise The terrorist, the suicide up in those skyscrapers that the soul. bomber, is someone who’s dominate the landscape it FIELDSTUDY 16 FROM A DISTANCE [5] [4] is easy enough to see the Elephant and Castle. But it is a view from a distance, a view that is not populated by faces and stories. From there, one is unable to see the human reality of work and pain and loss. Paul Reas brings all this to the surface. His photographs of incense pots, for instance, bought from the open market in the Elephant, are fascinating indications of the sort of social pressures the owners of the building had that the people of this area left, the work staff let him in are subjected to. The point anyway. Reflecting on all of of these pots is that their this, Reas pays tribute the contents are burned to generosity of ordinary people provide help in particular and their willingness to let situations: “break up”, “court photographers into their lives. case”, “money drawing”, and He recalls what he learnt on “fast luck”. The idea that such the first day of college: “being problems can be sorted out a photographer is a privilege with the purchase of a can of and the camera is a passport incense from a Rastafarian into other people’s lives” bloke on the market is and that with this comes a powerfully indicative of the huge responsibility. It is, he hidden desperation of so insists, only by responding many lives, lives that are too to this responsibility with often hidden from view. And it “dignity, respect, integrity, is the feeling of anonymity, of commitment enthusiasm not mattering or being seen, and knowledge” that the that generates a widespread documentary photographer sense of worthlessness. works out of the best Allowing all this to fester is traditions of his or her calling. what creates the conditions I have a friend who for periodic explosions of worked as a priest on an violence of the sort that we estate in Sheffield as it was witnessed during last year’s being demolished around riots. him. His favourite hymn was Earlier this year, Paul Abide with Me because of Reas went back to Newport, the line: “change and decay where he learned his craft in in all around I see. Oh thou documentary photography, who changest not, abide to take some pictures of his with me.” As Paul Reas was old college that had recently completing this project of been acquired to turn into photographs, his own family luxury flats. After getting home in Bradford was being permission from the work’s compulsory purchased by foreman, he returned the the council to make way next day only to be told that for redevelopment. It is his “the owners of the building, sensitivity to the human who are a group of bankers, cost of ‘change and decay’ don’t allow photography on that makes this collection of their premises.” He reflects: images so poignant. “How ironic that is. And how familiar to most of us Giles Fraser as the world seems to be August 2012 increasingly closing down to photography.” But the story doesn’t end there, for when FIELDSTUDY 16 FROM A DISTANCE [9] [8] [10] FROM A DISTANCE [11] FIELDSTUDY 16 [12] FROM A DISTANCE [13] FIELDSTUDY 16 [14] FROM A DISTANCE [15] FIELDSTUDY 16 [16] FROM A DISTANCE [17] FIELDSTUDY 16 The Photography and the PARC has received external This issue of Fieldstudy was Paul Reas was born in Bradford From a Distance is the result of The Elephant Vanishes is Archive Research Centre was funding from the AHRC and JISC edited by Patrick Sutherland in West Yorkshire in 1955. He is an invitation to photographer directed by Patrick Sutherland established in 2003 as the first and has led partnership funding and Monica Takvam to coincide best known for his two books I Paul Reas to respond to the and has been generously of the University of the Arts on a range of projects including with the LCC exhibition From a Can Help and Flogging a Dead regeneration of the Elephant funded by Southwark Council, London’s research centres. NAM (JISC) (Considering Distance curated by Paul Reas Horse as well as very personal and Castle in south London. with additional support from It commissions research, Vietnam conference, Imperial and Patrick Sutherland and documentary projects. His Paul was chosen for his track Getty Images, LCC, University organizes seminars, symposia, War Museum, 2012); New British co-curated by Monica Takvam. varied photographic career record of personal, socially of Wales, Newport and C3 exhibitions, conferences and Photography 1968-1981 (AHRC); also includes work for editorial committed documentary work. Imaging. The website www. publications. It also hosts ROAD: Acme artists and the Stop and advertising clients of the From a Distance forms part of theelephantvanishes.com and co-edits the Journal of the M11 Link Road Campaign, highest level. Paul’s work has the Elephant Vanishes project, a will be launched next year. Photography & Culture. 1984-1994 (AHRC). been exhibited widely, nationally long-term documentation of the Past projects from the PARC’s core members play an and internationally, and is changes facing this area. The All photographs © Paul Reas Centre include ‘How We Are: important part in the Centre’s held in a number of public and project was launched at a study Photographing Britain’ (Tate work. These include: Tom Hunter; private collections. His work is day organised by PARC and Exhibition Printing and Britain, 2007); ‘Magnum Ireland’ Wiebke Leister; Sara Davidmann; represented by James Hyman was built into the programme Production by Dunstan Baker, (Irish Museum of Modern Art, Patrick Sutherland; Alistair Gallery and he is currently a of the MA in Photojournalism The Fine Art Print Company.