Street Level Photoworks - Artists Films from Scotland
As part of NIDA International Photography Symposium 2018 (4th-9th September) in Nida, Lithuania, Street Level present a series of short audio-visual pieces which align with the theme of the day of (Self) Reflection on Thursday 6th September. The works speculate on the human condition and the various ways that this connects us – in life, death, love, family and cultural history, the environment, and the sense of self in relation to place and nationality. The works explore some fundamental themes and emotional journeys with a distinct photographic sensibility.
View the full programme of the Symposium here
The works were premiered in May in the event La Nuit de l’Instant in Marseille, a collaboration between Le Centre Photographique Marseille and Street Level Photoworks on the theme of ‘Love Letters’ which took place in the context of MP2018/The Spring of Contemporary Art.
Postcards from Scotland in a Time of Crisis
Frank McElhinney
2018, 4 mins 32 secs
Digital images are presented in faux vintage style mimicking the plate cameras of the late nineteenth century when commercial studio photographers in Scotland ran incredibly successful businesses selling prints and postcards that helped shape the world’s image of Scotland. The work dwells on Scotland’s self-image, and also leads us to question what kind of Scotland we want post-Brexit and potentially post-Independence.
Man In The Moon
Alan Knox
2018, 2 mins 59 secs
In ‘Man in the Moon’, Alan Knox uses negatives from his family archive, held to the sky so to be backlit with the full Moon’s reflection. The work seeks to reflect on the lost aura of the work of art caused by mechanical reproduction. Knox states that ‘one may become receptive to the loss of the other by investing the lunar satellite with the ability to gaze back at the viewer through the mediation of photography, tracing the timeline of my Grandfather’s life.’
The Cradle
Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte
2018, 7 mins 52 secs
‘The Cradle’ was made following a residency in Marseille. It looks at plant migrations through botanical gardens, herbariums and plant science in the age of the Anthropocene. The work engages with the plant kingdom through amateur means: observing, recording, mimicking. It is a consciously non-scientific meditation on migration, climate change, extinction and a search for new ways of coexisting in potential new ecologies.
One Day?
James Pfaff
2018, 6 mins 16 secs
‘One Day?’ references both camerawork, paintwork and gesture in a performative final love letter on his opus autobiographical project ‘Alex & Me’, a complex journey of emotion referencing an intense encounter and road trip made 20 years ago.
Film Stopped
Karen Vaughan
2018, 3 mins 44 secs
‘Film Stopped’ by Karen Vaughan is presented as a work in progress and takes as its starting point her landscape work, exploring the coastal legacies of Scotland’s north east coast. Marrying and overlaying still with moving images, an intangible blend of colour and monochrome formulates a fusion of emotion, nostalgia and irony.
The Garden
Valentine Vermeil
2018, 7 mins 40 secs
As part of a residency in Glasgow, this Marseille photographer immersed herself in the Botanic Gardens as a metaphor for the notion of Paradise, and to propose that question to a number of protagonists. Valentine’s approach to documentary is one of a poetic nature, it allows her to reveal the complex identities of her models, putting her encounters at the very centre of her practice in order to question reality.
Banner Image: © Frank McElhinney
Left Image: © Alan Knox