#WeAreRydeArts - Julian Winslow
I was involved in the Ryde Arts GROW project both to document the two-year project and produce work in response to it. As part of GROW, I photographed a dancer interacting with a large collage piece by artist Jo Hummel. I wanted to express the interaction between the two very different disciplines.I tried two different techniques.
“For me, growth as an artist is always on the tails of growing as a human and this comes from many things, often it’s an interaction with a person, community or environment.”
The first one involved setting the camera on a tripod in front of Jo's piece and taking multiple long exposure images of the dancer as she performed in front of it. The long exposures create an abstract of the dancer, revealing the movements and how the lines of that reflect in the lines and shapes of the collage behind. In the second shot I wanted the dancer to be suspended in front of the work as the collage pieces were hung. This was achieved by freezing the dancer with a very high shutter speed while she had left the ground as part of the performance.
For me, growth as an artist is always on the tails of growing as a human and this comes from many things, often it's an interaction with a person, community or environment. I spent some time in the Ryde allotments, documenting life there, human, plant and animal. It sits in the bottom of a valley surrounded by houses, flats and a train station. It struck me how the allotments were like an iron age village; a small community of farmers, working the land and how this was nested within the broader community of the surrounding town. It was as if you could see how our past was nested in the present, where we had come from, a thread that stretched through time and how we are basically the same creatures we were thousands of years ago. It made me feel very human and part of a long succession from the beginning to the present.
The community was involved in my part of the project by being the subject, which sounds passive but involves me talking to people about what they do, their lives and the journey that brought them to this point. This expression of interest helps people to see that they are part of a community, that they are of value and interest. People that feel valued are better people. I have many lasting memories of the project, as a photographer these are often encapsulated in the images you are left with, Laura Hathaway’s greenhouse installation, Disorder II, in the carnival procession and the dancer from GROW, but overall it was the interaction with the characters at the allotments and the insight I felt I gained by documenting it.
About: Julian Winslow is a freelance photographer and artist.
Contact: julianwinslow.com Instagram: @julian_winslow
Current exhibition: Promenading at Ventnor Arts Club
