New group photographic exhibition was inspired by Philip Larkin

A new photographic exhibition presented by artist collective The Long Exposure will be making its Bristol premiere at Centrespace Studios & Gallery on March 17.

The selected images, made by 11 contributing artists and lens-based practitioners based in the US, Europe and the UK, were inspired by four lines from a Philip Larkin poem written in 1939.

The two-stanza poem Why Did I Dream of You Last Night? is imbued with poignant reflections on the fragility of time, atmosphere and memory.

So Many Things I Had Thought Forgotten, The Long Exposure at Centrespace (2023) – photo Clare Wilson

Its last four lines served as the basis for all of the work created for the exhibition:

So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
– Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.

Coupled with their unique techniques, the artists’ very personal responses to Larkin’s words have allowed them to touch upon their own feelings about time and space, moments found, and lost.

From the exhibition So Many Things I Had Thought Forgotten, by The Long Exposure at Centrespace (2023) – photo: Tim Jones

The resulting images “show us the beauty and specialness in seemingly trivial moments, bring us closer to the stories and emotions of loved ones, and uncover hidden stories of everyday places in the UK, Europe and the USA,” the group states.

The full list of artists and photographers is: Isabelle Boutriau; Mark Crean; De Ferrier; Phil Hill; Tim Jones; Marcel Rauschkolb; Victoria Smith; Tim Stubbs Hughes; Ross Trevail; Clare Wilson. They met while studying on the MA Photography course at Falmouth University, graduating in 2021.

“(Our) diversity of experiences, histories and the now, all feel important to the group,” says Stubbs Hughes. “We are not bound by national borders, or a single philosophy, but rather are interested to see how we respond to opportunities and ideas that present themselves to us.”

In their own words, several of the group shared insights about what their photographic practice means to them:

Tim Jones

The different experiences and diversity of the collective has helped push my own photography and image making, and given me the confidence to produce and release my book.

Photo: Tim Jones

Tim Stubbs Hughes

Photography has been a constant presence for me, since I was a teenager. I worked a summer job when I was 17 to buy my first camera. I took photographs for myself, not to show or share, but because it captured moments and gave a sense of memory to the events that I was witnessing and partaking in.

I continued taking photographs as I trained as an actor but then replaced the act of the camera with the act of the theatre director, creating visual moments and memories through scenography and stage craft: through the bodies of the actors, the words of the playwright and the set, lighting and sound of the stage.

Throughout those years, my return to photography has been central to my practice. The memory of the moment and its resonance within and beyond is integral in my work.

Phil Hill

Photography has been part of my life for over 25 years. I first came to it in school and found it transformational in the way I was able to understand the world around me. I have used it ever since to explore and develop understanding.

Photography is in every part of my life, even when it can ebb and flow, I make images all the time, with or even without intent.

Photo: Phil Hill

Isabelle Boutriau

For me, photography is a language, the expression of my intimate view of the world. A photograph is like a poem. It is about the emotions it evokes.

In my life, photography is a pretext. It helps me connect deeply with my surroundings and people I would otherwise not have the chance to meet. It makes me learn about myself and the world, discover new depths. It is a quest.

Photography is also therapeutic, meditative and a powerful stress reliever. It has taught me to be fully in the present moment. It is freedom.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiT5ADwIGi5/?hl=en

Mark Crean

Photography is therapeutic in my case. Immersing myself in a scene is a way of allowing my unconscious to tell me what I really feel, of how the myths and stories from my childhood and past colour everything I see.

It’s a way of trying to be in a place rather than simply looking at it. And quite often what seems to emerge from the frame is a kind of numinous quality that’s more important than the details. I’d like to think this is the poetry of the everyday, and photography helps me to access it by encouraging me to slow down a bit and try to be curious about life. I’d feel lost without it.

Photo: Mark Crean

De Ferrier

A day does not pass without a record of making either a diary entry, drawing or a photograph as image making has been a part of my life since childhood. I was born in Tarbrax, in the Scottish Borders and around my first birthday my family relocated to Aden, beginning a pattern of moving every three years with the memories and images from each place etched in my mind.

A regular recollection is standing on the Karpaz peninsula listening to my father’s stories of Riyadh and Syria, which was just across the water. This nomadic life has continued into adulthood but provides an opportunity to capture photographs. The work I make is grounded in this transient life of migration and unbelonging.

A recent trip to Scotland inspired this latest work, providing photographs that I collaged and hand printed to create unique state images related to ethereal memories of my homeland.

Marcel Rauschkolb

Photography gives me the tools, methods, and processes to visualise my view of the scenes, situations, people, and places surrounding me. David Bate wrote: “the motivation for documentary photography is to ‘creatively inform’ an audience about another part of the population, whose life and experience may be unfamiliar to them”.

I like this statement; it perfectly describes what I am trying. Showing others overlooked details of the world or giving them insights into places and their stories which are not accessible to everyone. Make them interested in this; make them think about it.

‘Mountains’ – photos: Marcel Rauschkolb

Michael Padilla

Photography for me is a tool to explore the repeating cycles that surround us in our day-to-day lives. The movement of the shade cast by a lonely tree on a wall is an echo of the existence of that tree, an ephemeral mark on our urban landscape that the medium can illuminate.

The search for these moments of illumination is tied to the cycles of my own life and the practice of photography, the creation of images is a way of processing events and giving life to that for which I have no words.

So Many Things I Had Thought Forgotten is at Centrespace Studios & Gallery, opening on March 17 with a private view from 6-9pm, and then daily from 11am-6pm until March 20. For more information, visit www.centrespace.org.uk or follow @centrespacegallery on Insta.

Main photo: ‘Kunsthalle’ – Tim Stubbs Hughes

Read more: Backhand: The group exhibition exploring the word ‘dreary’

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