Artists Statement

"My Photography is strongly driven by observational and anthropological approaches. The place of political and social viewpoints in image making is very important to me, I am interested in how photographic practice can be a way of thinking critically about these issues. A crucial aspect of work for me is the idea of practice as research, as it is in the making of photographs that I believe it is possible to pursue serious enquiry into the world.

Over the past six years I have worked alongside photographers, film makers and musicians in various collaborative ways. This has greatly influenced my progress as a photographer and artist. Through my portfolio and experience I have been accepted onto a MA in international photography journalism at UCLAN. The project I wish to undertake is a continuation of the work I have already produced in Israel and Palestine. In 2009 and 2011 I visited contacts on both sides of the border. One is an Israeli family committed to trying to end the occupation through cross border humanitarian work, the other is a musician from the UK working for a music school in Ramallah that teaches in its grounds and in refugee camps. On both sides these individuals are trying to create change through community projects.

With help of an RPS Bursary I wish to return to Israel and Palestine for a longer period of time to carry out a project as part of my MA. The aim would be to make an intersubjective body of work, one that questions ways of seeing and explores varied viewpoints in a situation. Participatory methods using workshops and disposable cameras would be a key to seeing things through the eyes of the people in each situation, whether this was in refugee camps, or villages in Israel divided by ethnicity. I would be using the images from workshops to produce an exhibition of cross border work. I believe that through collaborative ways of working, deep and questioning perspectives can emerge.

As well as participatory projects, I would be documenting my progress through photographic and audio means. Interviews and atmospheric sounds would be used to make a short film showing the methods I used in my research and fieldwork. The body of work produced in these countries would then feed into an exhibition that combines the work of the people I encountered as well as my own photographs and the short film. It would aim to raise debate about the use of ‘objectivity’ in the photography of suffering, which is so often the basis of photojournalistic work. I feel that objectivity in photography is often assumed rather than interrogated, I am asking; can collaborative photography be used to show a wider and more in depth picture than traditional photojournalistic methods do?"