Artist Blog

Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.

In November 2015 an exhibition of works was held at Webber Gallery Space. Below is the accompany text for the show. The images shown here are an expansion of the work contained in the book, alongside some install pictures. Through three years of his work, Alex F. Webb has increasingly focused on the land of the east coast of England, particularly Suffolk, an area known for its rural charm but with a rich history of military experimentation. Taking sites of uncertain access as a starting point, Webb has explored the ways in which individuals challenge and consider orthodox explanations of extra-ordinary occurrences. In particular, Blind Landing Experimental Unit [BLEU], the subject of Webb’s book and installation at Webber Represents, focuses on The Rendlesham Forest Incident of December 1980. An area of woodland next to the former Royal Air Force Base at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in which there were a number of reported sightings of craft of unknown origin (Unidentified Flying Objects). The incident has since become the focus of various allegations concerning coverups by the Police and the MoD, whilst being widely dismissed as a hoax. Presented as both a book and as an installation, BLEU acts as a dossier to the process of investigating The Rendlesham Incident. Process is emphasised over conclusion, suggesting that what is important is the way in which we perceive the worldly as otherworldly, in turn arguing that individual interpretation is just as, if not more, valuable than official explanation. BLEU is insistently anti-narrative, encouraging us through the feel of the photographs to understand perception as subjective but of incredible worth. Webb encourages us to understand accumulation as an end in and of itself, interpretation is postponed continuously so that the images remain persistently uncanny, challenging our desire to form a clean-cut story surrounding the incident itself.The images resist a documentary approach, instead blending formal content and subject matter to question how it is that we perceive the flat image in a three dimensional world. "Time and again, as one walks across the wide plains, one passes barracks, gateways and fenced-off areas where, behind thin plantations of Scots pines, weapons are concealed in camouflaged hangars and grass-covered bunkers, the weapons with which, if an emergency should arise, whole countries and continents can be transformed into smoking heaps of stone and ash in no time. Not far from Orford, and already tired from my long walk, this notion took possession of me when I was hit by a sandstorm. I was approaching the eastern fringe of Rendlesham Forest. Suddenly, in the space of a few minutes, the bright sky darkened and a wind came up, blowing the dust across the arid land in sinister spirals. The last flickering remnants of daylight were being extinguished and all contours disappeared in the greyish-brown, smothering gloom that was soon lashed by strong, unrelenting gusts. As darkness closed in from the horizon like a noose being tightened, I tried in vain to make out, through the swirling and ever denser obscurement, landmarks that a short while ago still stood out clearly, but with each passing moment the space around became more constricted. Even in my immediate vicinity I could soon not distinguish any line or shape at all. When the worst was over, the wavy drifts of sand that had buried the broken timber emerged from the gloom. I crawled out of the hollow that had formed around me like the last survivor of a caravan that had come to grief in the desert. A deathly silence prevailed. There was not a breath, not a birdsong to be heard, not a rustle, nothing. And although it now grew lighter once more, the sun, which was at its zenith, remained hidden behind the banners of pollen & dust that hung for a long time in the air. This, I thought, will be what is left after the earth has ground itself down." W. G. Sebald