AOP Breakfast Club – In Conversation with Carol Allen-Storey 23.6.20 via Zoom

with Gideon Mendel, Simon Roberts, Jillian Edelstein, Liz Hingley

Q: HOW HAS COVID IMPACTED ON THEIR WORK?

Gideon Mendel

is recognized as one of the world’s leading contemporary photographers, he has an intimate style of image-making and long-term commitment to socially engaged projects. He has for instance made collaborative film with HIV patients’ film by themselves

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We are Living Here – Gideon Mendel (2020)

He calls himself an interloper, between documentary, street photography and portrait photographer; he likes the different controls in each. He talked about his Ridley road project, where he saw yellow lines being painted on the road and then shot people with the lines and signage and masks; he still returns and has shot 260 portraits so far. Returning makes you notice things like the different weather. He takes the subject’s e mail and then sends the photographs and their stories they have told him:

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Liz Hingley

a photographer, anthropologist and curator works on cross-disciplinary projects that explore systems of belief and belonging in cities. She collaborates with academics on long term basis, and was working on a project exploring privacy in a public space with cell phones and digital culture – this has stopped, as has her work with families that have been rehoused for the new high speed train route:

Instead she has been out locally, noticing how people were engaging with her local Hampstead heath in different ways during Covid. She is now interested in small rituals, their physicality and impact: like hand washing. She proposed and been accepted by local hospitals to give photography workshops to staff to engage with how it’s been for them during Covid; they’ll take the photos and curate them, afterwards they’ll be hung in the hospital.

She talked about a new body of work on portraits of workers on ventilator production line and composite of their gestures when working on a part on the production line:

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Her web site shows many interesting projects which I shall explore when I have more time:

Projects – Liz Hingley (2020) At: http://lizhingley.com/projects (Accessed 24/06/2020).

Simon Roberts

is a British photographer known for creating wide-ranging surveys of our time, which examine contemporary economic, cultural, and political landscapes.

© Simon Roberts

He has previously done a lot of work about gatherings, working about how people interact with the space, but this has had to stop now, and has found it hard as cannot carry on with previous projects. He’s spent more time with his family and thinking about the new reality; how he will he make work in the future and how will we carry on as visual artists?

During the Covid crisis he took 56 seascapes through the 56 days of lockdown and sold them to raise money for the NHS.

NHS Covid-19 Fundraising Print – (Simon Roberts, 2020)

Jillian Edelstein

works in both portrait and documentary photography. She is currently working on finishing her feature documentary about the Bipolar afflicted, Academy Award nominated American screenwriter, Norman Wexler.

Before Covid she was working on a “The Lonka Project” related to holocaust survivors, who became a vulnerable group because of their age, so had to pause it.

This portrait of John Hadju MBE, a survivor of the ghetto and the Holocaust in Hungary; he is with his teddy bear, ‘Teddy’, who came out of Hungary journeying with him as a refugee to the UK. This image will be included in an international collaboration of thirty professional photographers of all faiths who, since 2019, have each volunteered to donate one photograph of a survivor of the Holocaust to share their stories.

During Covid she tried photographing in Kilburn high Road, a multi-cultural community at the beginning of lockdown, but found most refused to have their photograph taken and stopped.

She has continued her ongoing series Affinities as ”Behind The Colorama” looking at past collaborations again now during a time of social distancing and self-isolation; to think about the richness and value of our relationships, friendships and creative associations. The videos include film clips made during the most recent shoots for the project.

Asked what kind of legacy as storytellers’ photographers are going to be leaving behind, Edelstein said:

• Collaborative bodies of work
• Curating on Instagram accounts
• Feeling the experience through other people’s photographs

My learning:

• The benefits of having long term commitments photographic commitments
• The benefits of collaboration
• I am not so different to these photographers; the Covid situation stopped my creativity and productivity for a while, and it has made me reflect on the importance and meaning of photography going forward.
• Even professional photographers do not find it easy to engage people collaboratively on the street

References:

HOME | jillian-edelstein (2020) At: https://www.jillianedelstein.co.uk/ (Accessed 24/06/2020).

NHS Covid-19 Fundraising Print – Simon Roberts (2020) At: https://www.simoncroberts.com/news/nhs-covid-19-fundraising-print/ (Accessed 24/06/2020)

Projects – Liz Hingley (2020) At: http://lizhingley.com/projects (Accessed 24/06/2020).

We are Living Here – Gideon Mendel (2020) At: http://gideonmendel.com/we-are-living-here/ (Accessed 24/06/2020).

Work – Simon Roberts (2020) At: https://www.simoncroberts.com/work/ (Accessed 24/06/2020).

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