Commission

The Commission project consists of a theme commissioned by our tutors from which we have to think of a concept, research artists and facts about it and then make a series of at least 3 images. The theme given to us is waste, it can relate to any sort of waste, human, animal, toxic, rubbish, etc. The only rules we have to follow are that it has to be related to the theme, shot with either a medium format or a large format analogue camera and it has to be taken either in the studios in campus or on location around the Medway area.

After the first lecture I went for a walk along the Medway river towards M2 bridge with my 35mm camera and took a few shots. In this walk I noticed the random litter around the river, what could be called fly tipping or illegal dumping. I think the randomness and the spontaneous of the rubbish found to be interesting, the idea that people can just throw stuff away in the river and fields is something worth investigating into the background, the laws and the so called “benefit” that people get from it.
I want to highlight the diversity of the objects found around the Medway area through an object shoot in the style of Keith Arnatt's series "Pictures from a Rubbish Tip", Irving Penn's "Cigarette" series and David Maisel's series "Library of Dust". Taking items away from the street and shooting them in the studio environment, this way highlighting the objects, and in this case the variety and randomness of the objects that can be found in 100 meters of river bank in the Medway Area.

Keith Arnatt's series is a body of work devoted to images of decomposing food, some in their plastic wrappers, some naked; all of which have a delicate, almost transcendental, beauty. is more artistic, looks for a more aesthetic view towards litter picked up in dustbins. It has a romance to aesthetic, making the viewer want to look at it, but once you take a proper look at the image, focusing on the object, you can see the grime and dirtiness that represents rubbish. Arnatt uses the medium of photography with the sensibility of a painter. Colour is important to him, and this comes out in one image depicting a strip of bacon and a piece of eggshell against a backdrop of plastic partially obscuring a pink floral pattern behind. Arnatt has transformed the unwanted into something, at least pictorially, highly desirable.

Penn's work depicts his interest and fascination in photographys ability to make the mundane interesting. He made a series of cigarette photographs in the 1970s in which he recorded the cigarette butts he found. The cigarette series show photographys ability to objectively record and to make fascinating at the same time. Penns imagery elevates this ordinary piece of detritus to sculptural form. He shows photographys ability to take an object, shape or form out of context and produce an artistic form from it. 

Library of Dust is a haunting series of images by David Maisel, who photographed a collection of corroding copper canisters containing the cremated remains of patients at the Oregon State Insane Asylum from 1883 to 1971. The canisters are beautiful. The abandoned remains have reacted with the copper to create colourful deformations on the canisters that often appear to be bubbling over. The visual poetry is beautiful, bewildering and bewitching. 

With Christy's help I found a photographer by the name of Andy Hughes. His pieces of rubbish on the beach have a sculptural quality, highlighted through the choice of high saturation, texture and colour. He looks at beach litter not as something that spoils the landscape but its beauty. His work titled 'Dominant Wave Theory'was exhibited at the Mariners Museum in Virginia, USA (30th May-3rd Jan 2010). This work took 10 years to complete and was part of 'Surfers against sewage' which were part of Cornwall's clean up of their beaches. 

His photographs highlight the disposable lifestyle of humans and the cost on the environment. I guess then his work was inpsired by the work of the New Topographics; whose ideas explored the increasing imprint of man on the landscape. His objects create aesthetic forms, isolated in the surroundings of the lonely beaches and by tthe tight cropping of the frame. The audiences attention is drawn to the large scale composition and the saturated colours highlighting the beauty in the rubbish forms.