Art / Photography

Photography exhibition embraces identity, history, memory and geography

By Martin Booth  Monday Apr 26, 2021

As a 15-year-old in 1967, Chris Rydlewski spent an unanticipated week in Paris: walking, exploring and observing.

Now a photographer and lecturer at City of Bristol College, Rydlewski has since realised what a pivotal week this was “in learning how to actively see”.

Rydlewski’s second self-published photobook, Searching For Your Shadow, is based on his mother’s home district of the 15th arrondissement in Paris.

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“This is a personal exploration of a space embracing identity, history, memory and geography,” he says.

The photobook is accompanied by an exhibition at Centrespace Gallery on Leonard Lane, which is free to visit until Wednesday.

“This work is based on the notion of the flâneur – walking meditatively, but immersively – a skill learnt in that week in 1967,” says Rydlewski.

Despite photographing in a busy city, Rydlewski says that he “eschews both the inclusion of people and also the visually dramatic, preferring the places to remain implicit – spaces where drama may (or may not) occur”.

All photos by Chris Rydlewski

Read more: Permanent photography exhibition installed at St Paul’s Learning Centre

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