In Stuart’s words the work: “centres on the 487 boxes of archived paperwork of architectural firm the John Madin Design Group, stored in Birmingham Central Library. A multi-screen slide projection combines three strands of subject matter: the archival boxes, their contents (printed materials relating to Madin’s projects and the construction industry between the 1950s and 1970s) and the buildings to which they refer.”

I have a vested interest in the exhibition as I was involved with production of it, so seeing it come to fruition is a real treat. However this does mean that I find it difficult to comment on it beyond some warbling affirmation of greatness, so I’ll refrain.

Also on show, England and the Octopus. Britain and the Beast, which has Stuart maintaining his fondness for grandiloquent titles,  sees the revisiting of a town in North Wales -Blaenau Ffestiniog- a former quarry town which has been excluded from the national park borders, due to it “lacking sufficient beauty”. Stuart investigated the decision to exclude the area and discovered it was made, in part, by eccentric architect Clough Williams-Ellis, a man who regularly decreed that the common man did not understand beauty (or words to that affect). Interestingly, not far from Blaenau is the extrodinary “village” of Portmeirion which Williams-Ellis designed and built over a 50 year period. If you are not familiar with Portmeirion click the link and judge for yourself if “attains sufficient beauty”

The work is a “new two channel video installation contains new film footage of Blaenau Ffestiniog, with a Welsh-language script sourced from texts written or edited by Williams Ellis.”

Really looking forward to the show and would just like to congratulate Stuart on a long difficult process finally coming to a conclusion. Well done.

-

One Germain piece, I find very interesting is, In Soccer Wonderland. I really think it’s a total master stoke, capturing the essence of British Football culture and how photography has been used to influence, entice and intrigue generations of people into supporting certain teams. Germain uses one of photography’s most powerful tools, nostalgia, to embed the notions of millions of people into one body of work. It’s an eclectic mix of found and new imagery and for something that was made almost -20 years ago- still feels current, even with the immense changes in football over that period.

I urge you to check out some of his other works and specifically look at some of the ways he is engaged with the ideas of photo art.

I’ve been beavering away since getting back and thought i’d share a couple of images on here as I’m putting a small edit together for a crit and meeting with some curators.

Each wrestling event I go to poses a new set of issues, from technical issues (shocking low light conditions) to just generally being a nuisance and annoying the wrestlers when they are trying to get in their zone. However I think I managed to pull out some interesting portraiture and some detail shots which speak a little about the independent wrestling scene.

I’ve briefly been involved with some of the post production of this project and having seen most of the work, my hat goes of to Adam once again. I’ve lived in Northern Ireland all my life and it is engrained in me not to venture into some of the areas in which Adam embedded himself.

The political situation in Belfast has been we documented not only via photography but every medium imaginable (Check out Ursula Burkes ceramics if you haven’t seen them) but Adam has managed to readdress issues of old and combine them within a contemporary environment. The ‘new’ Northern Ireland, which -I believe- is looking forward but certainly maintains one foot in the past, is captured here excellently.

So come along in you are in Belfast next week.