Wednesday, October 16, 2013

ODETTE ENGLAND: REVIEW FOR "OF WALKING"

Chicago Reader Blog preview for Of Walking at the MoCP


"In its early days, photography was often confined to the studio, where subjects posed stock-still for as long as it took an image to be fixed on a glass plate. When film cameras became portable and, later, handheld, the medium easily moved outdoors, keeping pace with dramatic urban growth. But documenting that change wasn't always the focus; some shooters used the form for contemplation as they wandered on foot, their work the visible transmission of their musings. The photographer became the flaneur, that traditional walker alert to all the city's paradoxes". —Andrea Gronvall


Dad #4 (Left Foot), 2012 © Odette England

"Although metropolises are key to many of this exhibit's entries, others take the viewer farther afield. In her project "Thrice Upon a Time," the Australian photographer Odette England shows the devastating impact the 1989 loss of their farm had on her family. In 2005 she returned to document her old home; in 2010 she invited her parents along, asking them to strap the large negatives of her 2005 photos under their feet as they walked the property. Scratched, punctured, and shredded, the negatives produced images that are literal records of tears in the family fabric". —Andrea Gronvall
Read the complete preview for Of Walking HERE.

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