Sometimes a realisation about your own work can come to you when you read or see the work of others.
One of the main elements of my non-documentary environment-related images has involved an aspect of play, fun, or childishness. The colourful aesthetic, the kaleidoscopic style, the anything but precise outlines all tend to hark back to something I have not hugely acknowledged.
But by wanting to raise awareness of the hard-to-swallow realisations of what our species has done, and is doing, to our planet and those we share it with, I have employed my propensity towards joy.
Perhaps I have not dwelt on this sense of play in my photographic practice for fear of it not being seen as a serious comment on environmental issues. But a recent article by Andy Field, an artist, writer, and curator based in London and this year’s artist for The Creative Fellowship via Exeter University, has made me value this part of my own photographic process.
In his article The importance of playfulness, Andy spoke about his Fellowship experience so far and the impact of the pandemic on his response. He speaks about his collaboration with Maarten Koeners, the lead for The Playful University, and the value this brings to his Fellowship experience and academic rigour and bureaucracies.
I’ve always had a leaning towards the disruption of a process - for example, I never record any of the exposure, chemical, or digital details when creating my work. I used to beat myself up about not being exacting enough or perhaps not being considered professional or as knowledgable as others who work in a more meticulous fashion.
Now I embrace the sense of fun I tend to create in my images, even when my aim is to raise awareness of life-threatening environmental situations.
The old saying laughter is the best medicine is a motto I shall doctor to joy is the best medicine. We are all doing our best to cope with the evolving pandemic we find ourselves in. Truthful, hard-hitting images are a vital tool to provide information and education in a confusing world but playfulness in photography can sit alongside this. After all, if a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down why not an act of photographic joy to press environmental messages home?
Find out more at:
https://theplayfuluniversity.co.uk/