GC: From an educational point of view one of the seemingly eternal, most popular subjects is ‘place’ or ‘landscape’. We see this desire from students to somehow integrate into environment. Is it something driven by a position in terms of your own autobiography?
Sam Mason: Moving towards the work within the publication, I think our place within Wales is notable within a lot of peoples work and sometimes not so obviously, quite elusive.
I feel being in Wales the relationship between man and nature is a lot stronger than anywhere that I’ve been for a long time. I think that comes through a lot of the work and taken from a personal level I don’t think that I would have produced the work that I have if I hadn’t been in Wales. I think that would be the same case for a lot of people that are in the book.
BA: I think in terms of negotiating the identity of a place, the last few years has seen a seismic shift in the way the media operates and the photograph is no longer a tool of topology that it once was. This sense of place now is maybe not such a demographic element to photography but much more inverted.
People are finding themselves in this multilayered culture and world where there’re more levels of negotiation to work through before you find your work at the end of it, your art. I think that’s
a lot to do with the conditions which we’ve been brought up in however people are not necessarily trying to find a place and self, place and self are interrelated.
I think the problem is that we’re operating in a time of apolitical internationalism within contemporary art.
HS: I think also something that hasn’t been mentioned is the impact of the huge number of students who are currently enrolled on photographic courses, not only in Wales, but in the whole of the U.K. How does that impact on ones practice?
Magali Nougarede: I think there might be an issue with this because we have to deal with so many students they have less time to think, they have less tutorial time, they have less time to actually develop their practice. I think there’s much more use of ‘formulas’, ‘art formulas’, for students.
We maybe give them the answers because there isn’t really the time to let that student think for themselves and that’s a bit unfortunate for this generation.
I go back to the time where I studied and you studied [Helen Sear], our work was probably more clumsy but it was more individual and I’m not
93
speaking specifically for any of you here, who are all clearly very good students. I think it’s time that we can’t afford to give you, unfortunately that may impact on the work tends to look fairly generic.
AM: I do think it’s the professionalisation of being an artist that has happened with the rise of MA programmes in the last twenty-five or thirty years. It’s feeding this but it’s this emphasis on needing to come out fully formed, you have a chance to hit the market in a rising tide and make a lot of money.
BA: This has obviously got to be a reason why so many people are turning to photography instead of other traditional art mediums or non-art mediums, to try and make a way for themselves. I think it is to do with the situation of culture on a broader basis at the moment that more people are turning to photography to look at things because it’s a reflective medium but also an introspective medium.
I think this is only going to grow because the institutes are taking lots of money off the students and they’re having a whale of a time doing it and that’s good and proper but that’s in a way only going to be a negative cycle of things of how we are able to think and look. That it puts each student in a bit of a sticky situation in terms of possibility, the voices do become slightly institutionalised because you’re there to
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202