After a hiatus of 2 years, Crane Kalman Brighton Gallery is pleased to return to Brighton audiences with Cream 13, an exhibition featuring a new selection of some of the most interesting and diverse photographic graduate talent to emerge from 2013. The exhibition includes BA graduates from some of the most prestigious Photography Courses from Universities and Colleges the length and breadth of the country from Westminster to Glasgow; London to Newport and Brighton to Ulster.
Cream 13: A Showcase of Graduate Photography Talent 2013 will first be exhibited at the University of Brighton Gallery from Thursday 15th to Friday 30th August, and then marking the start of a new series of collaborative exhibitions, the show will move on to the Brighton Dome from Saturday 14th September to Sunday 27th October 2013. Please note: on occasion Brighton Dome Founders Room may close for private events. To check exhibition opening times please download details (PDF, updated 13 Sep 13).Photographers
This year’s showcase features:
Eugenijus Barzdžius (University of South Wales, Newport) – ‘Harvest of Wetland’ documents a self-governed settlement in a Lithuanian wetland, built by a bunch of citizens frustrated with the long journey to legal allotments on the outskirts of the City. The space means escape, survival, and responsibility to its habitants.
Tine Bek (University of Glasgow) – Bek treats the issue of the social norms and the conventional lifestyle with spontaneity and a little irony. His characters “Bend over Backwards”, as they are trying desperately to adapt to the external expectations posed upon them.
Joseph Conway (University of Brighton) – ‘Nine Miles as the Crow Flies’ documents a series of interventions in the landscape. The playful images are informed and situated within a history of Land Art.
Jacqueline Douglas (University of Ulster) – ‘Thank you for being my family’ plays a tribute to the life of Esperanza, Douglas’s Peruvian nanny who left her own family behind 50 years ago to become a part of Douglas’s in Ireland. In 2013 however, Douglas travelled to Peru to photograph Esperanza’s own family.
Laurence Harding (University of Westminster) – ‘House of Cards’ draws attention to the fragile foundations of our economy and personal ambition. As we perform our social roles according to pre-packaged lifestyles, our individuality is regularly challenged.
Leanne Healey (Falmouth University) – The series ‘Familiar Dreams’ works as a psychoanalytic experiment drawing on common archetypes and symbols in dreams. The pictures set the spectator’s unconscious in motion to recall memories of their own.
John Jordan (Dun Laoighaire) – In ‘Shannon Stopover’, Jordan juxtaposes existing photographs of Iraqi dead, military planes and airport infrastructure to comment on the Irish Government’s authorisation of Shannon Airport as a refueling point for US military aircraft on their way to the war on Iraq – an abrogation of Ireland’s long-held policy of neutrality, and against the wishes of its people.
Simon Kaye (University of Essex) – ‘Structure of Power’ explores the physicality of an immaterial subject such as energy. Apart from allowing the viewer to glance at the physical aspect of electricity the series conveys an allegorical comment as well.
Junko Ogura (University of Westminster) – in ‘Little Box of Milk’, Ogura shows the long-term effects of the nuclear catastrophe that happened in Fukushima, Japan. The leakage of radioactive materials poses an invisible threat to the lives of the population since 2011.
Chris Pledge (University of Portsmouth) – ‘Days of Future Past’ captures the nuances of movement and the modulation of time using experimental techniques such as long and multiple exposure.
Chloe Rosser (University of Falmouth) – ‘Form’ speaks of the human condition and our increasing alienation from our own bodies. The unsettling photographs contort bodies to become seemingly inhuman figure studies.
Sarah Smith (University of Westminster) – ‘As the Crow Flies’ is about the continual chasing of an elusive and unattainable phenomenon, an obsession never to end or be fulfilled. Smith addresses this feeling with the symbolism linked to birds.
Susie Tsang (Stockport College) – ‘What’s Left Is Unsaid’ talks about a ritual that opens up the narrative of a delicate and intricate relationship between a daughter and her mother: a constant flux of confusion and clarity, ease and frustration.
Chelsy Vaney (University for the Creative Arts, Farnham) – ‘The Landscape Experience’ is a search for a faithful representation of an experience within a landscape. By interfering with the physical object of the photographic prints, Vaney enhances the material qualities of the landscape representation, and at the same time overcomes its limitations.
Saxon Whitbrock (Falmouth University) – Images of ‘Logolepsy’ represent the extrapolation from word to understanding, and thus the inherent beauty in the human desire to communicate ideas. Simple and expressive, Whitbrock’s photographs are substitutes for words.
Byoung Joon Yoon (University of Westminster) – ‘Agency of Light’ consists of diptychs depicting colour compositions. The work explores the link between colour and light within the frame of photographic practice, yet in an abstract and allegorical sense.
Jiaxin Zheng (London College of Communication) – ‘The Shroud of Beauty’ reflects on the pursuit of Asian girls to become the Caucasian beauty ideal. Zheng visualises their struggle to ‘mask’ their original personality in order to conform to the societal expectations of beauty.
