Output details

After London

After London is a sequence of 5 photography / painting montages made for a site-specific exhibition looking at the legacy of C19th Greenwich based science fiction novelist Richard Jefferies. This work explored the relationship between landscape and the science fiction imaginary, in this case particularly reflecting on the shifting character of apocalyptic landscapes of London since Jefferies wrote his novel in the 1870s. The exhibition featured visual work by me and a text by the art historian Dr Joy Sleeman (Slade) published as a limited edition pamphlet. The exhibition took place at Greenwich University’s Stephen Lawrence Gallery, at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. The works I made comprised large scale framed digital prints made from 5”x4” format photographs, which were then partially painted over by hand, producing disjunctures of scale and reference. This work arose from an ongoing exploration in my work around the notion of ‘the artist’s impression’, as well as themes of landscape and the science fiction imaginary, positionality, and the economy of the sign in landscape. A public panel discussion involving John Timberlake, Dr Joy Sleeman, Dr Matthew Beaumont (Dept Literature, UCL) and the novelist Will Self, author of The Book of Dave was held on Sunday 13th March 2011 at the Howe Lecture theatre, University of Greenwich.The exhibited works were later (Summer 2012) shown as part of the ‘One Day in the City’ literary event (<http://www.ucl.ac.uk/onedayinthecity/people-blog/people54>). The discussions on Victorian attitudes to London and the Apocalypse that arose between myself and Dr Sleeman led us to approach Tate Britain regarding staging a one day conference to tie in with their exhibition Apocalypse: John Martin, and this was held at Tate Britain's Clore Auditorium on 13 January 2012. The five images made for After London, along with Dr Joy Sleeman’s essay, was included in Transmission Annual 3: Catastrophe (ISBN 978-1-906441-28- 9)

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