Contemporary Photography at Somerset House
2019 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition
Charlie occasionally searches for photo exhibitions in London. Somerset House is always a good place to start looking. The main image shown to advertise the exhibition immediately got Charlie’s attention: three women in wide open space, there’s just one massive palm tree. They are wearing traditional clothes and are obviously on the way to a surf spot with surfboards and traditional Sri Lankan Tuk-Tuks.
About the Sony World Photography Awards
It is a yearly competition for contemporary photography, and it is its 12th edition in 2019. Photographers around the world are asked to submit their work in several categories. As such the whole exhibition can hardly be classified as showing one kind of photography. You find almost everything from street photography to nature, architecture and documentary photography. This year’s categories were: Sport, Portraiture, Natural World & Wildlife, Architecture, Documentary, Discovery, Still Life, Landscape, Brief and Creative. All of this is complemented by some special exhibitions such as the Zeiss Photography Award and The Swap Project alongside the works of Nadav Kander. It is difficult to give the exhibition an overall theme, but Charlie noticed that topics like environmental damage and critical views on modern society are prevalent throughout the exhibition.
Documentary Photography: The human impact on nature
The artworks that left the biggest impression on Charlie were shown right at the beginning of the exhibition in the category “Discovery”. Charlie was a bit confused about them at first as they didn’t look like photographs and showed a lot of white space in the middle of the image. It is the work by Leah Schretenthaler and it is titled “The invasive Species of the Built Environment”. She has taken those pictures of her home of Hawaii showing amazing landscapes and controversial building and infrastructure projects. She then used a laser to remove the architecture leaving the white space as a scar. She’s showing the permanent damage buildings cause for the environment.
Signs we exist
In line with the first few images is the second part of the exhibition showing the work of Nadav Kander who won the award for “Outstanding Contribution to Photography”. The biggest part of the display shows pictures with the title “Signs we exist”. All these images show parts of a landscape – natural and industrialised – and a few humans. Those people are relatively small in the landscape that probably has been shot with a very wide angle lens to capture as much of the surroundings as possible. All those images show an aspect of nature that has been modified by humans whereas the humans in the images themselves are very small which sends a message by itself.
Charlie would love to share those images with you, but she would never hurt the copyrights of another photographer. You can see some of his work on the official website of Nadav Kander.
Critical views on society
Charlie was surprised about the part of the exhibition that was categorised as “sports” as it turned out to be more of a societal critique than a display of sports – apart from some stunning images of free divers. Instead of showing the sport, these images show the impact sports can have on society.
Most of the pictures in this room showed the work of Alessandro Grassani with the title “Boxing Against Violence: The Female Boxers of Goma”.
All these images show young African women wearing boxing gloves. The backgrounds indicate that this is set in a poor sub-urban area. The descriptions confirm this impression and explain that these pictures have been taken in an area labelled as “rape capital of the world”. Young women turn to a violent sport to be able to defend themselves against violence.
Another image in this category shows a girl wearing clothes that indicate poor living circumstances on a football court. The image is titled “Can I play?” by Balasz Gardi. It shows an immigrant girl in the United States that makes contact with other kids outside her language group on a soccer field. The organization that makes this possible is “Soccer Without Borders” that has made it its purpose to reduce barriers for unaccompanied minors migrating to the US.
Beyond critical views on society
Another part of the exhibition goes way beyond a critique of modern society by displaying war images of Palestine. There is a warning about some disturbing images at the door so that the visitor knows what to expect. One image stuck to Charlie’s mind. It shows a warrior on the battle field, half-naked, waving the Palestinian flag. Charlie remembers this image as the composition reminded her of a painting by Eugene Delacroix painted during the French Revolution with the title “Liberty leading the people”. That historic painting shows a woman that stands symbolically for liberty that guides the people. Charlie is not sure though the image taken in Palestine sends the same message. Only time will tell, whether liberty will eventually arrive to that part of the world.
Recent political events in Europe are equally part of this exhibition, fortunately not violent, but displayed in a humorous way. Charlie would have been surprised if Brexit wouldn’t have been part of this exhibition of contemporary photography. Under the title “I wish I were British” shows Michela Carmazzi her work. She is an Italian living in London, and she is using her photography to express the uncertainty Brexit has brought to EU migrants. Charlie, as a German living in London, certainly feels a connection there.
The images show Michela in everyday situations, but her face is modified with what she calls “British Celebrity Masks”. You can see Theresa May getting out of the shower only wearing a towel or the Queen washing the dishes wearing giant yellow rubber gloves.
Artistic expression through images
Another part of that exhibition that fascinated Charlie was formed by several portraits. Each of them was shown twice, the difference between the two images was a change in photographic technique and lighting. At first sight, the visitor is wondering whether both portraits show the same person or not as one of them looks like a man, the other one like a woman. It is incredible what a difference a little change in technique can make. This just confirms that photography is a form of artistic expression that allows the photographer to show reality in the way he wants the viewer to see it.
Another part of the exhibition even shows some visual tricks through photography and the part that is categorised as “creative” certainly deserves this title. It gets indeed creative with shiny colours and surrealistic scenes.
Charlie likes it when the description gives an information about the technique the photographer used as it gives her the chance to improve her own photography by exploring new ways to look through the glass. One image that made Charlie stop revealed the secret: It is an image of the central station in Hamburg that looks as if the same image is applied several times on top of the previous image with a slight shift. It creates a stunning visual effect while keeping the picture intact. The technique that was used by the photographer Alexandra Fink-Milosavljevic is called multiple exposure. Something for Charlie to try out.
Loads more to see
Of course, it doesn’t end here, there was loads more to see – too much for Charlie to write it all down. It certainly inspired her for her own photographic projects and gave her plenty of ideas on how to display the world around her through the lens.
It is particularly inspiring to see the same image displayed in more than one exhibition at the same time: It was a picture of a flamingo in a kitchen that has become part of the household enjoying his meals next to the cat. The same image with a bit more background information was shown at the Natural History Museum in the exhibition “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” that Charlie visited a few days later.
