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© Harry Watts
© Harry Watts
© Harry Watts
© Harry Watts
© Harry WattsHarry Watts Graduated from University of Brighton in 2009 with BA (Hons) Editorial Photography
“ The Bell Common Tunnel, situated on the M25 road network, is the area which I have been granted access to record. This is a £90.5 Million refit of a public space, in need of redevelopment, yet still 120,000 vehicles move through it daily. As one of the 234 structures, and one of only two tunnels, situated on the M25 the Bell Common Tunnel is in need of change. Behind on safety codes and fire regulations, over the next year replacements of mechanical, electrical and fire safety equipment will take place. The ventilation system will be upgraded and new monitoring equipment will be installed. In the end passers by might only notice the clean walls, newly painted lines and brighter lights.
Behind the walls and even above ground there are countless pieces that will hold together the safety of the motorist within the tunnel. These details are not placed on show or presented as artifacts but buried. Seeing behind the facade of the development
A tunnel is placed to cut a passage under a building or through a hillside. At Bell Common, situated in the Epping Forest, the tunnel sits under a part of historic countryside resulting in the need to minimize the effect on nature that has been vested in the Corporation of the City of London, and conserved by the Epping Forest Act, 1878. Along side the redevelopment of the tunnel interior, developments will be taking place above ground
The 470m-length stretch of tunnel is mirrored above ground with a cut out section of the forest, I have documented this change of space throughout the redevelopment and work in parallel with the construction below. Detailing with the means of which, us as humans, present traces of our presence to change the very space we inhabit.
The connection with the natural and artificial is an aspect that I have explored within this work. Not only does the redevelopment have to care for the road user during the time of construction, and following resolution, but also the preservation of the forest land above. Both natural and artificial have to co-exist, with the latter being a produce of nature itself, the spaces we develop create a nature that can be seen as surreal, a sculpture gallery if you may.
This sculpture park is the way that I have addressed these found scenes of surrealism in both the above and underground areas. Turning a normality of the everyday to an artifact of documentation, within a changing environment.”
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(from "Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research") ©Victoria Jenkins
(from "Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research") © Victoria Jenkins
(from "Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research") © Victoria Jenkins
(from "Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research") © Victoria Jenkins
(from "Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research") © Victoria Jenkins
Victoria Jenkins Graduated from University of Brighton in 2009 with BA (Hons) Editorial Photography“Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research”
“A unique characteristic of photography has been its ability to record the visible, material world, its perceived objectivity and accuracy has lead to a utilitarian application of the camera as a tool for documentation, and this can be traced back to photography’s early history. Parallel to this is a history that echoes with illusion and trickery; photography carries a false empiricism, for which we may allow our guard to be dropped.
The photographs presented in Images from the Archives of the Institute of Esoteric Research are rooted in the language of rational investigation, employing quasi-scientific laboratory style conditions in to which a series of still lives, fictional archival images, are constructed. A commingling of varied sources occurs: vernacular imagery of magic tricks, home science experiments, divination practice, superstitious belief and forensic investigation. The intent is to play on the conflicts in the languages that are being appropriated: logic and absurdity, revelation and trickery, illustration and illusion, but also that which seems concurrent despite the apparent polarities: the image whose authority is asserted through a shrouding in secret language and gesture.
This collision and coinciding intends to produce a series riddled with ambiguities, the oblique amongst clarity providing a slippery surface on which to form the photographs narratives.”
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