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.

Earlier this year, I was in Georgetown, Penang, for the Obscura Photography Festival. I curated a slideshow, had an artist talk with the Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive and hosted a panel discussion on the "democratic forest" of photography and the implications on our practice as contemporary visual story-tellers. It was an incredible experience. Georgetown itself is a wonderful place to explore and the festival is still in relative infancy, founded only a few years ago by Malaysian photographer, Vignes Balasingam.

There is an intimate sense of community being fostered at this festival that is run by photographers for photographers. Some of the outstanding works that were on show included projects by Cristina de Middel, Sarker Protick, Diana Lui and Waswo x Waswo, put together under the helm of last year's curator, Indian based photographer, Arko Datto.

After a generous experience there this year, I have recently agreed to curate the print exhibitions of the 2016 edition of the festival and have been pondering the ideas and themes in which I want to frame the works that will eventually be on show.

There is much in the world of literature that informs my attitudes towards photography - both are modes of communication and both rooted in the culture of language. A prevailing idea from the world of literature was mentioned in my first post for my guest blog this week, "Write what you know". I also think that this exploration of what you know to be true, must be tempered with the acknowledgement that perhaps you might be wrong, but your responsibility as an artist is to walk that line and see what comes of it. An interview with Sally Mann in American Suburb X builds on this with another borrowed quote from literature, "if you don't know what to write, just write the first sentence that comes to mind. And the myth of writing a novel is to find out what the next sentence is."

In support of this, I've also been reading Deborah Eisenberg's interview in the Paris Review's Art of Fiction No. 218 and found another thought that keeps playing on the carousel of ideas in my head.

"Art itself is inherently subversive. It's destabilizing. It undermines, rather than reinforces, what you already know and what you already think. It is the opposite of propaganda. It ventures into distant ambiguities, it dismantles the received in your brain and expands and refines what you can experience."

I think that this is true, both in process as well as outcome.

So if any of you out there are willing and able to help me condense these ideas into a singular and palatable theme for Obscura 2016, feel free to drop me an email! Otherwise it would be a great pleasure to welcome you there next August, theme or no theme :)