Change the world or go home: TROVE No. 26 Non obsolescence

Curated by Charlie Levine, TROVE

Saturday 29th October – Day 30th December 2011. Friday – Sunday 12 noon - 5pm or by appointment. Downstairs Gallery, Great Brampton House, Madley, Herefordshire HR2 9NA

Presented by HPF and Trove alongside the Change the World of go Home exhibition at Downstairs Gallery.

Photographic techniques have rapidly changed within the last century; the immediacy of the digital plus its accessibility to the everyman has made everyone a ‘photographer.’ But what about classic photographic techniques? What about the essence of ‘catching/recording light’? Techniques such as camera obscura, cyanotypes, collodion, glass plating and film photography - these techniques are dying arts.

TROVE No. 26 Non obsolescence brings some of those early form photographic techniques to DownStairs Gallery for the current exhibition Change The World or Go Home, in association with Hereford Photography Festival.

Minnie Weisz’ camera obscura, Jo Gane’s collodion and Matthew Andrew’s film photography all represent an era of photographic history; these formats changed the world, revolutionised documentation and altered our perceptions of life and truth. These artists represent how our views of the world changed, and these artists suggest a possible reason why the everyman photographer may want to go home.

Matthew Andrew explores preconceptions of what a reference photograph should be and how much information is conveyed to the viewer using a visual medium.  His featured work, Mimesis, uses film photography and is a series of images exploring truth, knowledge and photographic representation.
Jo Gane’s work, Ancient and Modern, uses the wet plate collodian process, an historic photographic process invented in 1850.  It involves coating glass plates with collodion chemistry, sensitizing plates in silver nitrate then exposing in the camera before developing or fixing, all in less than 10 minutes.  Her work aims to question the value placed on age and authenticity within the art/photographic market. 
Minnie Weisz’s photographs are taken in abandoned and forgotten buildings in and around London. Within their rooms she creates narratives from the abandoned objects found inside that relate to the building’s history, and the view that floods the room from outside.  Using pinhole technique, traditional photography and documentary, Weisz weaves stories into the interior world of a building, creating an ode to each place she inhabits through photography.
Running concurrently to Non obsolescence, the exhibition Change The World Or Go Home brings together a diverse range of artists both established and up and coming, ranging from Turner Prize winners to artists who grew up within 500 yards of the gallery.  It questions the relevance of artists in today’s society and whether their work can change the status quo. 

Preview
Saturday 29th October 2011
6pm – 8pm
Join HPF and TROVE for the opening of photography and video art exhibitions at Downstairs Gallery
Free

www.TROVE.org.uk

www.downstairsgallery.co.uk