Dark, Claustrophobic and Grey!

Gerry Badger is the man who writes the words for the Photobook Histories. But he's also a photographer and It was a Grey Day (Photographs of Berlin) is his first photobook. And it's a really good one, a depiction of unpeopled greyness that captures a city on the brink of a change. It's the kind of change that will transform Badger's studies in grey into pictures of nostalgia that people will look back on with affection and wonder. It was a Grey Day is a study in the marginalia of a city, and it does a fantastic job.

Badger's a writer and a photographer. But he's also an architect and in the book he brings his architect's eye to a city where he is drawn to the spaces between buildings, to the gaps and the temporary structures that inhabit the city, that in Badger's eye almost define the city. Because of this, there's a formality to the pictures but at the same time they are not cold. They speak of spaces that are deserted but have life all around them.

This is Berlin's Terrain Vague, although it's not always of a large enough scale to be called that. It's more of an opportunistic seizing of space and repurposing of it through graffiti, sculpture, and a placing of rubbish and junk that is almost installation-like in its purposefulness. Are these spaces beautiful or ugly, Badger asks? And why is he so drawn to them? Badger concludes that it's not ruin or splendour he's photographing, but change, layer upon layer of change.

The book starts with a picture of a small supermarket. Above the window a line of graffiti reads, 'This is not America (Here is not Everywhere).' Just in case you didn't know, there's a manifesto for you.

The book continues into a grey claustrophobia. It's more than overcast (there's a corner of sky in almost every picture) and the concrete of the city is complete leaden. There are fences, there are trees and there is a sense of history that adds a certain gravity to the book.

There are repeated references to Atget's Terrain Vague pictures and there are nods to John Gossage's Berlin In the Time of the Wall, there are pictures of the Wall, but ultimately this is Badger's book and it settles into a pattern of images of different forms of dereliction and untidiness mixed with urban escapism; impromptu corners where Berliners escape the concrete and sit outside in these little pockets of human comfort. There's a checked sofa with a barbecue in front, benches of varying degrees of decrepitude and a courtyard with a sign saying 'Refugees Welcome, Tourists Piss Off!'

So it's not that comfortable, but it's not uncomfortable either. It's just messy and weighty, with link chains and fences creating a hierarchy of marginal landscapes. And that's what the book is, a kind of hierarchy of non-empty empty spaces; a book where you can unpick the subtle differences between Third Landscapes, Edgelands and Terrain Vague with concrete parking places, pathways, steel doors, stairways to nowhere and communal courtyards thrown into the mix. There's destruction mixed with collapse and decay and a sense that construction (and another kind of destruction) are not too far away. These are urban spaces that are up-for-grabs but aren't being grabbed because that is not the nature of the place. 'Smash Capitalism!' proclaims one sign, and in a sense that is what is being shown here because there's nothing here to be smashed.

In the afterword Badger writes 'In the normal course of events I spend my time writing about photographs - the photographs of others. Now, faced with a a group of my own photographs, I feel stuck for words.... I feel disembodied by them... they baffle me. I find them obtuse and quite mysterious.'

He writes about how he sees his pictures of Berlin and wonders at how downbeat they appear. On the surface this is a very dismal Berlin. But at the same time it's not. It's a Berlin that is of itself and by itself. For now. The dismal Berlin will come later, when the hand sculpture (which is already gone) and the gentrification of the city 'continues apace'.

Buy the book here.

The Garden: Photography that doesn't put you in a corner

 

In Blue Mud Swamp, the colour blue sets the tone. Another book where colour dominates and defines the story is Alessandro Imbriaco's The Garden - but this time the colours are murky greens, browns and greys, dusk colours that rise like a miasma from the Roman swamp where Imbriaco made the pictures.

The Garden is the story of a swamp, a wild tangle of brambles, weeds and trees on the edge of a Roman highway. And in the middle of the swamp live Piero, Angela a - a homeless couple who have made their home in this Garden - and Lupa, their daughter who was born and is being raised there, the trees and streams and underpasses her playground.

The Garden is an Edenic reference but I think it's all a bit more pagan than that - more of a Pan's Labyrinth than Eden, a place where life is more nuanced than the monotheistic ideas that Eden represents. Little Lupa is no Eve. She has knowledge of the world around her and it is a good thing. No sin attaches to her because of what she is.

Despite, or perhaps because of  this pagan quality, there is a real earthiness to the book that is not at all romantic. It also feels real, but not in the gritty kind of way that puts you in a corner and doesn't give you a choice. There always seems to be a choice in The Garden - of how you read the characters, the landscape, the environment, and that seems to be something that is quite rare. It's not a spectacle and it's not a prescription. You are free to see what you want to see and think what you want to think.

I'm not sure why that should seem so special but it does. There is so much photography, especially of a 'serious' nature, that ties you up in knots, that seeks to put you into a particular place  in the way that you see and understand it. It's a kind of photographic correctness, where even though you may agree wholeheartedly with what is being said or shown, the resentment at being forced to agree with the sentiments of the work, the inability of the work to offer even a second dimension or alternative perspective makes one want to disagree with it just for the sake of it. It's Stupid Photography that doesn't enlighten or engage, but just shuts things up and makes one long for something that is open and free. Photography isn't always open or free. The Garden is.

Read my interview with Alessandro Imbriaco in the BJP here.

 

An interview with Rob Ball

all pictures copyright Rob Ball

 Different countries have different responses to inbetween suburban/semi-suburban landscapes - but it's something that figures large in contemporary photography. In North America, apparent expanses of space, urban sprawl and box architecture have a different set of planning laws and preconceptions of space than those in Germany or the Netherlands - the result is different photographic responses, strategies and histories - something we should pay more attention to.


Steve Bisson tells me the Italians call this kind inbetween landscape the Third Landscape. It used to be referred to more broadly in the UK as liminal space (inbetween space), but now the idea of Edgelands has become dominant - in the UK at least..

Marion Shoard writes about Edgelands here - she defines it as an "...unplanned, certainly uncelebrated and largely incomprehensible territory where town and country meet..."

There is also the book published last year Edgelands, by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts., which celebrates Edgelands as urban wasteland - in quite a romantic way.

Perhaps the prime writer on Edgelands-type environments is Iain Sinclair. His London Orbital is about walking the M25 - I can't read it but lots of people can. More accessible is this article on the development of the site for the London Olympics. And if you're looking for the photographic equivalent of Iain Sinclair is Stephen Gill and his earlier Hackney Wick work.

Marion Shoard teaches at the University of Canterbury which is also where Rob Ball teaches on the photography course. Rob works a lot with the idea of Edgelands so I fired off some questions to him which he very kindly answered.

What are Edgelands?

For a while Edgelands were my home. I guess, most commonly, they would be described as being a space in between – neither urban nor rural.  Farley and Symmonds describe Edgelands as a place ‘looked at but not into’.   The Edgelands I am photographing are everyday places to many people, but to me they resonate strongly with my past – that’s why I’m working in them.

Why are so many photographers interested in photographing them?

Photographers are always looking for new stories to tell and this is a rich time for photographs of England. There is a renewed interest in our own landscape, whether that be urban, rural or somewhere in between. I became interested in the green areas where I used to play when our government attempted to sell them.

How successful are photographers in photographing Edgelands environments? What is the difference between insight and non-insight?  

I spent some time in the US a couple of years ago and understand the excitement of everything feeling new and alien – at these times its hard not to take pictures.

Working in my personal Edgelands is the opposite – I have to continually self-edit – how do I tell the story in the most succinct way? How do I make my (unremarkable) story, the Essex/London border, interesting and relevant to someone in the US for example?

The question of insight is echoed throughout photography. What do I bring by having this relationship with the environment? This project to me is more like writing a biography – but I think my story applies to others too.

I am interested in how someone like George Shaw works – we have to be bold - Tile Hill, my local park, or Yosemite – I’d like to offer them all equal importance. I’d like to see more photographers from different cultures working in our Edgelands – the idea that non-insight can be just as interesting.

For reference there is an interesting show coming up at the Hotshoe Gallery that addresses question of ‘I’ and ‘Other’ - http://www.hotshoegallery.com/upcomingexhibitions/other-i-alec-soth-wassinklundgren-viviane-sassen/

What do Edgelands say about us?

It’s a paradox: shocking town planning verses wonderful examples of the human spirit; dens, desire paths, and a willingness to interact with the landscape in such an interesting way.

How do Edgelands differ in countries? What is the UK v the US for example?

I guess the American equivalent would be the Urban Sprawl. Some wonderful work has been made over the years – often in the 70s. More recently I love the work of Jeff Brouws. Most things in America exist on a grander scale – the sense of space is epic in comparison. In my Edgelands you can see Canary Wharf in the distance – a reminder that we are never cut adrift. In a way though, there is something incredibly British about Edgelands. There’s nothing grand going on, mostly it’s home made and understated. That’s the attraction for me.

Why do you photograph Edgelands?

I think there’s a richness there, I can also record these places with some honesty, integrity and a real sense of history. These landscapes are mine and have been for 30 years. Upon revisiting them (I no longer live close by) I feel it all coming back; building dens, sitting under the bridge smoking, scouring the landscape for porno mags and most of all, hanging around because there’s nothing to do here. The park was our haven – the only place where we would be left alone.

Who are the artists doing interesting things with that kind of inbetween/Edgeland space?

There are many and I think we’re about to see more. Joni Sternbach, Beierle & Keijser, George Shaw, Farley & Symmonds, Mark Power.

Edgelands is a very landscape-oriented term with a sense of inbetweenness - do you think there are equivalents in other areas of photography - in portrait photography, or documentary photography for example?

I think the liminal space is really interesting in photography. I occasionally work with Wet Plate Collodion creating exposures over a period of 30 seconds, the images are intense and the camera seems to record something in-between.  I love the work or Richard Learoyd who does something similar with cibachrome paper.