Jennie Rosberg's Photo Cultures Blog

TLON BOOKS OPEN AGAIN

2007-02-20T10:51:00.000Z

TLÖN BOOKS CLOSED

2007-02-10T09:33:00.000Z

I am currently looking for more information about this. Click here to read the SE1 news about it.

PREPARING THE EXHIBITION

2006-12-12T14:09:00.002Z

Finally it is up for display in TLON BOOKS on the ground floor in the ELEPHANT AND CASTLE SHOPPING CENTRE. We have been working hard the last week with printing a book, making flyers, editing some soundfiles and getting all the things we need to put the exhibition up. Unfortunately we did not get all of the recordings on to the CD that is in the bookshop because of some technical difficulties we did not have time to solve. We will try to get it done this week to 'upgrade' the CD maybe on Friday. This is the cover of the book.

And this is one of the flyers.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

2006-12-05T15:29:00.000Z

With this project we want to engage people to reflect on the upcoming regeneration plan in the area of Elephant and Castle, focusing on the shopping centre.
We have interviewed some of the owners the smaller shops in the shopping centre, what they think of the demolition plans and what will happen to their business. We have an upcoming exhibition of our photographs and the interviews in a bookshop, TLON BOOKS, located in the centre. We will make it possible for people to comment on the work and what has been said about the regeneration and we will try to replay on the comments by making new photos and interviews.

Presenting and Analysing the work

2006-12-04T11:35:00.000Z

We will put our work up for display in the book shop. We will print around 15-20 photos, hopefully they will all fit in the space we have been offered. We will print the photos on book format paper and bind it as an addition to the photographs for people to have a closer look. It is also our plan to have a CD player with headphones on display in the bookshop as well, then people can listen to our intervies and look in the book at the same time. We will compose a text as an introduction to the photo book, but leave the printing of a book for later, because we want to continue the work for a while. We have been offered to display our work for about two months so we will try to update the work (starting after christmas) along the way. After reading the essay about the public art project I was thinking (since it points out that a lot of the art availible in public never asks the audiences what they think) we can try to get feedback on the exhibition and answer to it by renewing and updating our work. This can be done by having a book for comments, or a box and a notepad availible in the bookshop. That would not be too time consuming either. I think our problem all along with this project have been that we have had too many ideas and have not been able do decide on what to do. Now we are focused on a certain space with the intention of documenting it and letting people have their say about the regeneration. So far we have been in control of the work, we have chosen what to do and what to display. It might be a good idea to let the start of the exhibition be the start of a further interaction, and let go of the control. Let others decide and have opinions what we should do.
We have edited more of our interviews. Listen to them here.

After reading the essay ‘Personal views: Public Arts Research Project´ (2003), by Doreen Massey and Gillian Rose, I thought it would be interesting to investigate how their ideas and theories on public art apply to our project. It is a good way of analysing the actual intervention and what we aim to do with it. The essay and more about the project can be found on this site:

http://www.artpointtrust.org.uk/projects/details.asp?projects_id=11

Massey and Rose’s main idea in how to identifying what public art is (or if a piece of art can be called public) seems to be that the negotiation should not only be between the work of art and the audience, but also between the different social groups an audience may be made up of. (How will the negotiation between these groups take place?) What different groups an audience may be made up of, has of course to do with what is being exhibited and where you exhibit it. Our work will be put on display in a bookshop in the shopping centre we chose to do our project about.

Naturally we will attract people that have an interest in books, but we also hope to attract other people. We think a bookshop is quite a casual place where all sorts of people come and go. We do not seek for a certain type of audience, why a more or less public space (maybe less in a sense, since it carries some restrictions) suits the brief of our project (that of an intervention) better, than for example an art gallery. If displayed in an art gallery it would likely attract people more interested in art, than in what we find interesting in our project; the issues of the future demolition of the shopping centre. It is the shopping centre we want to put in focus at first hand, not the actual work.

The space we are going to use will exclude a group of people. The shopping centre has the notion of being a public space, people can come and go but during certain opening hours, if complying to the restrictions and regulations set up. When you enter any of the shops there is the possibility that you might have to follow an additional set of rules or codes of conduct. Even though these rules can be said to be applicable on anyone, without being discriminating, my point is that in theory some people are excluded. Some people do not approve of such rules and might feel offended by them. So those who do not want to follow the rules do not have access and are therefore excluded.

Here is an example:
http://www.into.org.uk/displayNews.cfm?NewsID=8325

What I need to continue writing on is what we would like to be negotiated in our project (what social groups will be the negotiators?) and how we will go about in the aim of achieving this...

Field of Hope

2006-11-21T15:17:00.000Z

2006-11-21T14:01:00.000Z

Me and Ala (as always) went to the shopping centre again. We talked to a man who had lots of critical opinions about the Southwark council and their promises to the shop owners. Listen to it here.

It is tempting to interview some of the politicians but I think we have to limit the amount of material to use for this project. We already have quite alot of different recordings which we have to edit, then we'll see what comes out, and if we need to add something. So this weeks plan is to deal with the sound recordings, find a style of editing, and just do it... which isn't always just doing it because of the technical difficulties we have faced. Ala has been struggling alot with the mini disc, can't say she would ever want to use it again...

We talked to the owner of the book store about displaying the photos of him, and maybe the other photos of the shopping centre as well, in his shop and he kindly offered us to use some of the space. So on Friday we are going to take more photos and maybe do one or two more interviews. Then we'll focus on the editing and the displayling of our work so far. We will print the photos and put them in a book, like an album, and put it for display in the shopping centre. Printing the book will be a later concern.

Here are some of the photos we took of the shopping centre.

Project Analysis Outline

2006-11-14T15:27:00.000Z

It is time to start thinking about how to write the project analysis, just four weeks to go until the project is going to be finished. Here is the outline for our project analysis:

Essay 1500w

0. Introduction 100 words

1. Different ways of intervening, thoughts about them, how our ideas developed, refer to other projects, 325 words
Topic, photography, site specific intervention.

2.1 Our work, what we chose to do and why, 325 words
The project brief, Elephant and Castle, the proposal for our project.

2.2 Our work, how we did it, aestetic influences and inspirations (photographers, artists e.t.c.), 325 words
The work in the shopping centre, explain how we worked, interviewing people, collecting the sound, photographing uploading it to our blogs.

3. The interaction, the actual result, how did it turn out, what happened with the project? 325 words
Placing the work in the shopping centre.

4. Conclusion 100 words

Interviewing people in the shopping centre

2006-11-14T14:10:00.000Z

Me and Ala went to the shopping centre in Elephant and Castle to interview and record peoples opinions about the shopping centre and its future and to take photographs. We spoke to people working and/or running buisness within the centre. It was very interesting to hear about how they are/might be affected of- ,and what they think of-, the demolition plans. It appears to be lots of diffrent issues surrounding this. We got some helpful tips about people to speak to and we will contact them to make appointments for more interviews. Our tutor Paula and fellow students Patrick and Aviv went to see the manager of the shopping centre last week to see if there is a chance for our group to use a space in the centre to display our work. I think the manager is having a look at it, and he suggested we use the shops to exhibit our work, which seems like a very nice idea! We still have a lot of work to do (four weeks to go) and there are many ways to display our work that we still have to consider. If we will exhibit the work in the centre we have to think of a way to display the sound recodings. I still think we should do the slide show, maybe there is a way of displaying that in the centre as well? Printing a book of our work,the photographs along with the recorded opinions as text, would work nicely as a documentation of the shopping centre if, or when, it will dissapear (I write if because some people we interviewed don't think the regeneration plans will come true). Ala is working hard with getting the recordings she did, from a minidisc we borrowed at school, to the computer, and getting them on to the blogs, at this stage unedited. The sound blog we were going to use to upload didn't work so she had to start a my music space account. It seems like it is working now! The recordings uploaded is the first ones Ala recorded on her mp3. Listen to them on Alas blog or Yourelephanstory.
Here are some of the photos:

Strategies of the intervention

2006-11-05T17:27:00.000Z

Even though we are still working on our practical project, we have to start thinking and planning ahead for how we think about intervene with the public. I think we still would like to screen the slideshow onto a building. But getting the right equipment and plan the dates of screening might take some time so we should get started as soon as possible and work with it alongside the development of the project itself. We need to find a buildning to screen it on and a building to screen it from. We also need a decent projector. The sound is also a problem in need of beeing solved. I came across a site called mobmov (short for Mobile Movie), which is an Internet based movement that started in the U.S in 2004, for people who likes the concept of drive-in movies. People can sign up to get info about the where and when the screenings will be and all they have to do then is to show up in a car equipped with a radio, at the announced spot, often in parkinglots next to a wall suitable for screening. The projector and the FM transmitter is placed in one of the cars.
This is interesting to our project. I don't know how it works yet but if it would be possible to get a FM transmitter this could be the way to get people the best chance of hearing the sound recordings. The photos can hopefully work for themselves but if people want to engage more I thought maybe (?) hopefully (!) they can tune the frequency in on their mp3 players, if it has got a radio receiver. I really don't know much about this, but I am trying to find out more about it since it woold be a nice thing to do. If it is possible to do technically I hope it's not gonna cost too much to go through with. So if you read this and have knowledge about the matter please let me know!!

Collecting stories 1

2006-10-30T20:30:00.000Z

Me and Ala went interviewing people today about their opinion about Elephant and Castle. We used an mp3 player to record it, and I took some photos with a mobile phone camera. We started off with the kind classmates at the pub and worked our way to the shopping centre. I think we got a lot of interesting opinions about the area. We will start working with the sound recordings as soon as Ala and I get together next time. Here are some of the photos taken with a mobile phone camera...

When I was trying to put the photos together in a slide show I started thinking about how to make the stories go with them. Some stories are quite long and others short. So what to do with the long ones? And some people don't want their photo taken when they hear it's going to be published on the Internet. So I was thinking maybe we can extend the longer stories, take a lot of stories that tells something about the person but without actually showing her/his face. It could also of course include photos from the parts of the area they talk about. Then we can put all the stories together and make a 'film' of it.

One thing that interests me at this stage of our project is screening the 'films' on a building. Lots of the people we talked to had opinions that are opposed to the ones of the Southwark Council(this is when talking about the regeneration), why I think it is important to screen it in public, and the best place to do this would of course be in Elephant and Castle. Not that only anti- regeneration opinions will be screened, I still think the diversity of opinions are important and the regeneration doesn't have to be in focus all of the time either.

There are lots of things I can think that others in our class can participate in or maybe we can participate in others as well. Since a large part of this project is to find channels or ways to interact with the public space of Elephant and Castle, it would be convenient to co-operate. The content doesn't have to be of the same kind. We will still use the Elephant blog, but I think we really need to get going with getting people to use it...

Flying diaper

2006-10-18T18:37:00.000Z

Me and Ala wants to go interview people on pubs, but won't be able to do so until the end of next week for diffrent reasons...
The blog we set up is not going too well at the moment, I think we need to advertise it more, maybe put the links to diffrent Elephant and Castle related sites on the Internet. I think the blog has lots of potential, even though I think there is a bit of limitation to it technically. But, hopefully we'll find our ways around the problems.

After reading a lot about how space is used and who controls it, and how space is looked upon, I became a bit interested in doing something about that as well.
Things hanging in the air, if it was possible without being attached to the ground, would raise the questions of who is owing the space (the air) above us. A balloon working as some kind of billboard would be interesting. How is the air regulated?

I took some photos of Ala circulating around her, 2-3 meters away. She was standing still, trying not to move. I wanted to get a feeling of what being in Elephant and Castle could be like, getting a glimpse of the atmosphere. Having Ala trying to stand still as if being an object, oppose to how people come and go and the traffic keeps flowing through. If doing this maybe once a week the lightings and the weather changes will be registered as well as with the change of the season in a longer term. In the future the buildings, what we now see as the foundations, will change, is it possible to register this? I'm not sure I will be here for that long but it would be nice to take a photo every day or a couple of days in the same spot over a long term to register the changes. Anyway I will post the little slideshow of the circulation around Ala soon...

The diaper that you can see in the photo was thrown from one of the Heygate buildings when we were walking past.

What to do with the intervention?

2006-10-17T12:37:00.000Z

Last week I got together with Sandra and Ala to start working on getting stories from the Elephant and Castle. I first wanted to get people on the street to tell us what they think, maybe record it on tape and take photos of them. As we discussed how to do it we became a bit uncertain if we actually would get anything out of it, because people don't like to waste their time on random people on the street. So the idea of keeping the project anonomous emerged, we have started a new blogspot that is supposed to be for people having their say about the Elephant and Castle. We will put stickers up, Sandra drew a nice logo and we have printed some. Next thing to do is to put them up in as many places around the area as possible, which will hopefully get people interested and they can be anonomous if they want to as well. We can also use the blog to post our diffrent projects about the area on the blogspot. For example I would like to go to the pubs where local people hang out and, and to avoid being intimidating, record those who want to say something, on an mp3 player and use a mobile phone to take their photo maybe we even can record a videoclip if accepted... It doesn't have to be so complicated and you shouldn't have to have access to expensive equipment to post things on the blog.

Intervention

2006-10-07T15:32:00.000Z

How can I intervene with the area and what will it be about? I went to the Southwark Local History Library to do some research about the history of Elephant and Castle. I found a lot of old photos from the area, mostly just of the buildings which doesn't really tell the stories of the people living there (I can't post them here -they are copyright protected). So I figure it will be interesting to collect stories about the area from the people living in it, and if possible, find people that lived in Elephant and Castle before the regeneration in the late 1950's.

Elephantandcastle.org
Wikipedia on Elephant and Castle

I think it would be interesting to 'collect' peoples memories, glimpses of something that has happened, opinions or whatever there is, about the area, good or bad so there will be a more personal history existing of the area. One way of doing this might be to record or write down peoples stories, collect photos and take portraits of the people telling the stories.

So how will the project intervene? There are several ways I can think about. For example it would be interesting to point out places where the stories took place by putting up posters pointing out the story that happened there. This would intervene with people that might start to think of the places in a diffrent way. Maybe they also has something to say about the place or have diffrent opinions? I would like to relate the poster, sticker or whatever it will be, to a blog maybe so people can comment. It was very inspiring to read about the yellowarrow project. It has a site on the Internet where you can read more about it and become a member if you like.

Yellowarrow

Reflections about the past and maybe the future is interesting because of the upcoming regeneraion of the area. Is it possible to have the project continuing to work by itself, further on?

Drifting

2006-10-02T22:29:00.001Z

It can be a bit difficult not to follow things familiar to ones eye. Drifting in an area that have familiar paths, it is difficult to get lost without a strategy. I left one of the big streets in a direction with a map of arrows that I made, to end up where I never been before. It turned out to be as if I forced myself to go where I didn't want to go. I ended up approaching a building, I used to live next to, but from an angle I had not seen it from before. It was interesting to take the photos. I was fascinated by the straigh lines buildings like that are made of and the natural lack of colours. I don't think I would have gone closer to that house if just being out strolling, so I guess something diffrent did come out of it.

I have no idea if this is the way of doing it. I felt lost in more than one sense. What was I supposed to take photos of? I was a bit afraid of having more strategies than the one of drifting. If looking for certain things the openmindedness of the approach might be gone.. or? I do think it would have been easier to have more strategies though. Maybe I used more strategies without knowing it.

Introduction Photographic Cultures

2006-09-26T14:55:00.000Z

While exploring the photoscape surrounding us (and trying to interact with it myself) I will post my own work and hopefully get some comments and tips about it!

Until next week I'm gonna take photos in Elephant and Castle by using the method of drifting, getting lost to find "the invisible city". At the moment, to me, this means finding places, or getting another perspective of, a more or less familiar surrounding.