Artist Statement

FORMAT11’s theme is ‘Right Here, Right Now: Exposures from the public realm' and is curated around the theme of street photography, examining the relationship that photographers and filmmakers have to it through a wide variety of approaches.

Within this theme, the Collectives Encounter 2011 exhibition's curator Yasmina Reggad has decided to explore the concept of 'The Flâneur'. She invited collectives working with or about photography and related media to look at this concept through the lens of this mobile observer and aesthete that Walter Benjamin presented as a conceptual and analytical tool to think about the modern city.

The exhibition will showcase 4 new commissioned artworks by ASA & Wideyed, The Photography Collective, Vea-Collective and Rawiya, and the reformulation of existing work 'Degeneration' series by Human Endeavour.

From this starting point, the exhibition questions different characters of the flâneur translated into artistic method of the exploration of the city as the best laboratory to study human nature and social processes.

While producing a space delimited by an endless flânerie, Asa and Wideyed collectives are mapping the flâneur. They deploy a tactic of participation and special practice of the city in order to reveal multiple trajectories of interpretation and representation of the urban reality.

From there, Vea collective, deliberately deviating from their ordinary life and with a calculated passivity, take a stroll around artificial temples of leisure and idleness. With them, the flâneur becomes a voyeur and take the shapes of a detective.

Then, The Photography Collective loiter at a corner of the city and through their gaze into the crowd. They sketch a physiology of the flâneur, ‘turn the boulevard into an intérieur’ to eventually shift back to a world of constantly reflected observers in the city of merchandise.

The mystery of the crowd vanishes with the advent of surveillance and identification of individual and housing. Human Endeavour hit the pavement of social housing complex and shed light on the impossibility of flâneur to resist the ‘Degeneration’ of postmodern urbis’ planning.

Where does the flânerie end? What are its limits when the field of the straller is its mobility and his freedom of movement? Rawiya are studying these restrictions in to hostile social, economical, political and cultural environments.

The Collectives Encounter 2011 has already kicked off online with The Collectives Encounter Blog with the six photo collectives are sharing their thoughts and the creative process of their artwork for their collective show 'The Flâneur'. 

Artist (s) Bio

Vea Collective is a European-South American photography collective founded in 2010.

It is an initiative that starts from the idea of making photography a trans-border work.

Vea-Collective is committed to develop dialogue, reflections and discussions on human and environmental reality, from our native countries or foreign residencies. We intend to work on photography projects which transcend the different local or national realities.

The aim of the collective is to work together, support each other in promoting our work and discovering issues we as individuals and as a group find interesting and important to be raised. The fact that we come from different continents helps us to see work in progress through different angles. 

 www.veacollectve.com 

MEMBERS - CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ based in Madrid, Spain, EUNICE ADORNO based in Zacatecas, Mexico, IRVING VILLEGAS based in Frankfurt, Germany, MONA SIMON based in London, UK, MONICA GONZALEZ based in Mexico City, Mexico.

The Photography Collective is a group of photographers and fine art professionals from the West Midlands established in Spring 2010. Started by photographer Jo Hallington, the group provides a forum to create new projects and exhibitions as well as make new connections and share ideas.

The collective also brings together an extensive set of skills in graphic design, teaching, research and development and is establishing professional connections and networks with organisations such as Rhubarb Rhubarb, Light House, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and Birmingham Central Library.

This talent pool is just starting to develop into an organisation that can proudly represent the West Midlands in excellence both nationally and internationally.

The group includes photographers and artists; everyone is providing support whether they are exhibiting or not, contributing to press, design, blogging, publicity and more.

www.contactexhibition.co.uk

 MEMBERS - JANE BAKER, GEORGES BENSON, JASKIRT DHALIWAL, RITA FLETCHER, JOHN GARGHAN, JO HALLINGTON, JASROOP GREWAL, IAN AND MARK JAMES, TANYA KSWANYAI UPTON, LAUSS KESSELER, MARTIN PICKARD, PETER RAZZELL, HANNAH RUMSBY, GUNHILD THOMSON, PRABHJOT VIRDI-SMITH

All based in West Midlands, UK.

Rawiya is a photography collective founded in 2010 by 5 female photographers from across the Middle East. Rawiya presents an insiderʼs view of a region in flux balancing its contradictions while reflecting on social and political issues and stereotypes. As a collective, Rawiyaʼs photographers respect the human dignity of the stories they tell, pooling resources and vision to produce in-depth photo-essays and long-term projects. Rawiya is committed to assisnting merging photographers from across the region and raising the standarts of documentary storytelling.

Rawiya, meaning ʻthe woman who tells a storyʼ, brings together the experiences and photographic esthetics of Laura Boushnak, Dalia Khamissy, Tanya Habjouqa, Newsha Tavakolian, and Tamara Abdul Hadi.

Rawiya is the first collective of female photographers from the Greater Middle East region; they will be launching at the Collectives Encounter 2011.

www.rawiya.net

MEMBERS- LAURA BOUSHNAK based between Pristina and Beirut, TANYA HABJOUGA between Jerusalem and Amman, TAMARA HADI based in the West Bank, DALIA KHAMISSY based in Beirut, NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN based in Tehran

ASA is a London-based collective of people who believe on the power of storytelling as a vehicle to promote reflection and discussion about several issues of the human sphere.
The collective is committed to produce and give the stories which are long to be told a platform to make a difference.

ASA produce a series of monthly events – ASA slideshow project – where compelling storytelling work is showcased. Established in August 2010.

www.asacollective.com

MEMBERS- ARUN NANGLA, SRINIVAS KURUGANTI, ARMANDO RIBERIO

All based in London, UK

Wideyed is a non-profit photography collective founded in February 2008 by artist/photographers Lucy Carolan, Richard Glynn, and Louise Taylor.

Wideyed is dedicated to creating, curating and promoting compelling contemporary

photography for exhibition and cross-media publication. Its members provide peer and technical support for each others practices, engage in commissions, community arts projects and workshops, explore varied methods of printing, publishing and presenting works, and initiate collaborations with photographers and photography collectives outside the UK.

To date, Wideyed has produced in-house four solo exhibitions and five group shows. Its photographers played an active part in the 2008 edition of the Tees Valley Museums Photography Festival, leading workshops as part of the event as well as curating and producing 'Sisters in Chanel and Chador', young Iranian photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian's first UK solo exhibition. At the beginning of 2010, Wideyed undertook an experimental collaboration with Blindboys photography group in South Asia, leading to the exhibition 'Blindboys Wideyed' and two site-specific interventions in Newcastle upon Tyne, March-April, followed by 'BlowUp Bombay', a group exhibition in Bandra, Mumbai on 22nd May. More recently (September 30th-October 19th 2010), Wideyed exhibited and were artists-in-residence at Chateau du Perron in the Touraine region of France.

Wideyed is continuing to explore the potential of crossovers between the online and real world, as well as building on previous successful experiences of international collaborations by undertaking projects in which creative collaborations lead to the creation and innovative dissemination of new works.

www.wideyed.org

MEMBERS - LUCY CAROLAN, RICHARD GLYNN, LOUISE TAYLOR

All based in North East region, UK

Human Endeavour is a photographic collective conceived back in 2007 with the aim of bringing together like-minded photographers with a view to curating and enabling the set up and exhibition of new works around a central theme. The objective is to exhibit photographic work that is themed in conjunction with ideas of human activity and intervention that resonate with important topical issues of the day. As a collective, these images bring together new perspective of the dialogue that occurs through our evolving relationship within the landscape we inhabit, and how this resonates upon the collective human psyche in wider society.

As a collective Human Endeavour have had 3 exhibitions to date, the first two exhibitions were curated around a central theme incorporating existing bodies of work, the third exhibition however showed work from our new project called Degeneration. This on-going project is a collaboration produced and curated from its inception as a whole body of work.

www.humanendeavour.co.uk

MEMBERS- SIMON CARRUTHERS, RICHARD CHIVERS, ALEX CURRIE, OLIVER PERROTT

All based in between London and Brighton, UK.