SHINING

"Shining" brings together 14 photographers from Czech Republic and the UK. Most of them recent graduates, they represent different uses of photography and ways of captivating the ‘reality’. Staged, manipulated and purely documentary style photographs are all shown here to highlight the thin line between reality, illusions and dreams.

Jan Lesak’s unplanned documents emanate the joy from a found situation. Jan Cihak's friend of the night - fox - gives him a shoulder. Yeon Lee's nun is installed higher then usual to look down on the visitors - part of a series in which Lee explores women’s inequality and cultural differences. Katerina Drzkova’s colourful visual realisation of refugees’ dreams of future they image for themselves, juxtaposed with a small B/W image of their current life, brings a cruel comparison. Ben Camp’s armoured figure refers to Japanese martial art Kendo (way of sword), pointing out to the complex mental activity that goes on during a fight. Margarita Myrogiaanni’s King is also plunged in darkness, leaving everything but his smart collar to our imagination. William de Labat's series of people in the lift catches them looking out to the source of light, unwilling to get off. Ondrej Tkacik’s everyday objects – in this case carrot’s leftovers resting on a kitchen surface, their destiny numbered – remind us of our own unsure and short existence. Martin Kamen and Magda Slezar both appear in their work – Slezar naked on the beach, next to a dead dolphin, and Kamen in an awkward mute situation. In the case of Jasmina Cibic and Terrence Smith, photographs were a by-product of their installation work but these images work on their own as well, producing new meaning. Matt Croghan’s street and nature scenes get a treatment in Photoshop, the resulting scenes being deceivably (un)real. Similarly Dean Leivers alters indoor environment but he does so by projecting images – in this case onto a sink.

Michaela Freeman
curator of an exhibition