FORMAT23: Paper Geographies
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Gallery
Date:
17 Mar 2023 - 9 Apr 2023
Description
Exhibition at Derbion Shopping Centre, Derby City Centre, DE1 2LP.
Artists: Alan Jones, Ryan Moule, Polly Palmerini, David Penny, Yan Wang Preston.
Curated by Richard Page.
Paper Geographies presents five archaeologies of place: A three-century old daqing tree, uprooted and relocated to a new and unfamiliar landscape: An ancient Grecian column toppled by a gust of wind: A melancholic collection of empty packaging casings: Ruptures in the post-industrial Welsh landscape: Evidence of the mythic beasts of European folklore. Each posits relics that are fragile testimonies of memory, history, movement and time. Place and photography are both presented in a flow between stasis and movement.
Five artists are brought together to consider the lost objects of natural and human histories through the materiality of the photographic image. The artists presented here work with and through the expanded field of photography. Whether chemical-analogue processes, sculptural intervention or the static gaze of the topographic camera, this exhibition eschews permanence. Presenting a series of traumas and traces, artworks allude to the ephemeral, melancholic nature of time and erasure, and our attachment to history that takes place at the level of myth. Collectively the photographic works in this exhibition present a cautionary vision of the future - echoes from a civilization to come.
Yan Wang Preston’s large-format photographs depict Frank, a giant tree unearthed from an ill-fated landscape in China’s Lijiang Perfecture and sold to a new hotel complex. David Penny’s sculptural works replay the moment a gale in 1852 brought to the ground an ancient column at the Temple of the Olympian Zeus in Athens. Alan Jones’ photographic prints, made with out-of-date analogue materials, depict the sculptural contours of packaging materials that once encased consumer items during shipment. Ryan L. Moule presents unique collodion photographic plates, chemically unstable and enigmatic objects that render the post-industrial landscapes of his childhood. Polly Palmerini presents an assemblage of staged and found imagery, in the search for two mythical beings, the French Tarasque and Greek Chimera, bringing together fragments found in archives of local history and folklore.
Paper Geographies is a project curated by Richard Page, now in its third iteration presented for Format Festival 2023. The project brings together emerging and established artists who explore themes of place and materiality through a range of photographic practices. Each propose a critical relationship to our sense of place whether local or global, real or imagined. The first Paper Geographies exhibition was at Manchester’s Central Library in 2020, with a second iteration at Atelier Alonso during the Arles Photography Festival in July 2022. The project has presented over 25 artists’ work across the three exhibitions, many from across the School of Art and Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Biographies.
Alan Jones is a Manchester based artist who uses a broad range of photographic practises, with specific interest in the use of redundant technologies, analogue and contact processes. Jones’ work exposes the relationships between materials, space and time and seeks to find meaning in the patina of social structures. His work featured in the first two Paper Geographies exhibitions at Manchester Central Library (2020) and the Arles Photography Festival, France (2022). He has also exhibited in Plant Noma, Manchester (2018), AIR Gallery, Cheshire (2018) and Federation House, Manchester (2017). In 2015 he curated the exhibition Still Moving for the Vertical Gallery, Manchester School of Art. As a commercial photographer he has worked with image libraries, book publishers and record companies. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Photography at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Ryan L. Moule works at the intersection between the photographic image and installation, often working with chemically unstable materials. Moule has exhibited both nationally and internationally. His recent exhibition, Objects to Place in a Tomb was at the Serchia Gallery, Bristol (2022). Other exhibitions include Latent Call at Materia Gallery, Rome (2018), Hyperanalogue at The Photographers' Gallery, London (2017), Vessels and Vestiges, Jerwood Space, London (2017), Divisible Remainder at Mission Gallery, Swansea (2015), and Deviated Light at Ffotogallery, Wales (2014), as well as group exhibitions at Format Festival 21, Derby (2021), and Flowers Gallery, London (2016). Moule graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2013, and currently lives and works in Wales where he is Head of Undergraduate Photographic Studies at Swansea College of Art, University of Wales.
Polly Palmerini was born in Italy, and is an artist, educator and curator currently based in Manchester. Her practice explores materiality, malleability and the performative quality of everyday objects and she has exhibited during the Pingyo International Photography Festival, China and Les Rencontres d’Arles, France in 2018. She was the British Council Artist-in-Residence during the Venice Biennale in 2017. Palmerini also curates the Museum of Half Truths which was presented in 1a Space, Hong Kong and Contact Theatre, Manchester in 2020. Palmerini designed the Paper Geographies publication (2022) and worked on both exhibitions in Manchester (2020) and Arles, France (2022). She is currently studying for her MA in Photography at the University of Westminster and is a lecturer in Photography at Manchester Metropolitan University.
David Penny is an artist who explores the edges of photography, to make works that are ‘materially present’. He uses traditional still and moving image, sculptural processes as well as working with digital render, animation and 3D print. Penny’s work A Fallen Line of Marble Drums was represented at the Tblisi Art Fair, Georgia (2022) and SNEHTA, Athens (2021). Previous exhibitions include Remote Work at Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2021) and Screen for Another Focus at Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh (2018). His work is often informed by specific locations and spaces of work and production, and he has undertaken a number of residencies including at SNEHTA, Athens (2021), Dovecot, Edinburgh (2017), Hospitalfield, Arbroath (2017). In 2023 he will take part in the Pada Residency in Barrerio, Portugal. Penny is based in Manchester where he is Programme Leader of BA and MA Photography in the School of Digital Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Yan Wang Preston was born in Henan Province in China. Now based in West Yorkshire, she is a visual artist with sustained interests in landscape representation and its relationship to national and personal identities. Wang Preston’s practice is characterised by long-term and rigorous research processes that are led by her committed embodiment within the landscape. Internationally and critically acclaimed projects include, Mother River (2010-2014), Forest (2010-2017), and With Love. From an Invader (2020-2021). Solo exhibitions include the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK (2022), LOOK Photo Biennale, Liverpool, UK (2019), Xposure Photography Festival, UAE (2018), Gallery of Photography Ireland (2017), Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum (2015) and the Swatch Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Wang Preston’s work has been published as two monographs: Mother River (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2018) and Forest (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2018). Her work is held in several collections and she is represented by Messums London.
Richard Page is a photographer, educator and curator of Paper Geographies. His research encompasses photography, place and documentary storytelling. He is the recipient of the Jerwood Photography Award and has exhibited and published his work widely. Solo exhibitions include The Dialogue of the Dogs at The Francesca Maffeo Gallery, Essex (2017) and What We Already Know at Ffotogallery, Cardiff (2007). Page curated the exhibition From Common Differences for the inaugural Cardiff International Festival of Photography, Diffusion (2013). In 2020 he curated the exhibition Paper Geographies and Manchester’s Central Library, with a second iteration taking place during the Arles Photography festival in France, with accompanying publication (2022). Page has written about photography, including an essay for Ryan L Moule’s Latent Frequencies (Bookworks, 2014). He is currently Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Photography at Manchester Metropolitan University.
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