Contemporary | Larger Format

Edgar Martins

December 18th, 2009 by Laimonas

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I came across Edgar Martins project The Rehearsal of Space at Passage De Retz Gallery in Paris, and was completely stunned by the beautiful prints. These images were produced during the 2005-2008 fires in Portugal, Edgar working in conjunction with firefighters over his residency at Fire Protection Unit. Some of the photographs are smoked due to the negatives exposed to heat from the fires, resulting in technical accidents which added to the atmosphere of the photographs, later using the same technique purposefully in his later series.

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Tags: Contemporary, Edgar Martins, fire, Passage De Retz, Portugal
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Dustin Shum

December 15th, 2009 by Laimonas

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Last year I received Dustin Shum’s book Themeless Parks, which came accompanied with an essay by Mary G. Padua, describing his work as “whimsical”, or somewhere between Documentary and Zeitgeist. The book explores contemporary China, touching on the issues of redevelopment and rapid modernization of the country, and how Parks are used as symbols of power by city officials. The work captures the strangeness and surreal nature of these new constructions, and questions its true purpose.

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More of his work can be found here

Tags: Asian, China, Contemporary, Disney, Dustin Shum, Parks
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Stuart Whipps

December 13th, 2009 by Laimonas

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Stuart Whipps has a brilliant portfolio of work, and last year has done some teaching at my university. His website can be found here

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http://www.stuartwhipps.com

Tags: China, Contemporary, Stuart Whipps, Visiting Lecturer
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Lydia Goldblatt

December 11th, 2009 by Laimonas

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Last year Lydia has paid a visit to my university as a visiting lecturer, showing a beautiful portfolio of work, as well as talking about fine-art and editorial markets. Visit her website to see more work.

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http://www.lydiagoldblatt.com/

Tags: Contemporary, Lydia Goldblatt, portraits, Visiting Lecturer
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Buckshaw Village

December 7th, 2009 by Laimonas

Here is the first preview of a project I am currently working – Buckshaw Village, which is a large scale re-development site located near Chorley, North West England. In 1998, British Aerospace has begun demolition work on previously situated Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF), 928 acre site that supplied ammunition during World War II and after, employing over 28,000 workers at the peak time.

It has currently been transformed into 400 acre of redeveloped land, consisting of Residential and Commercial land, with plans to rebuild the railway station previously used by ROF, along with primary school and more leisure facilities.

Although it was designed to be a perfect utopia with a “better place to live, work, and play”, 11 years later it remains in a paused state, with the majority of commercial warehouses closed down, houses still for sale and other land unused. In this project I wanted to show the sense of solitude and emptiness that you feel when traveling through the village, usually bombarded with billboards pitching the dream life and a great space to work.

The project is shot solely on 5×4, and intended to be displayed in large size C-Type prints in my Graduate exhibition shows at Cube Gallery Manchester and The Bargehouse Gallery London in 2010. The series is still work in progress, and aimed to have 20-25 final prints.