Works 2014-2022 (Bildungsroman)

This is the first part in a set of three loosely related projects set in the Middle East and Europe. The photography for the projects has finished, and I am in the process of editing the works and writing. I hope to complete it this year. The first part set in Iraq, following the Tigris river through the country. The whole work is a response to having the Invasion of Iraq as a backdrop to my teenage years, and the worldview that formed in me since. The texts below are extracts from a unfinished semi-fictional piece of writing that accompanies the set of three projects.

"O had a specific pattern for making work. He liked to think he was playing a game of dot to dot when he made work, like he was walking around and pointing at unrelated places, people and scenes, and tying a string through them all and pulling them together. Each time O pointed to a new dot, it would feel completely unrelated to the next, in a different place, sometimes years apart, but somewhere in O’s heart, he felt a bit tear off and a thread of string pass from his heart to the dot. Each dot fleshed out a new limb of the body of work he was creating, and it wasn’t until enough dots had been collected that O could see what was being made. He wasn’t really a creator, an arranger of the world, a sculptor. A hunter, perhaps, maybe a collector. But really, O liked to think of himself as a star gazer, a constellation builder. Whether with your back to the Earth looking at the constellations, or thumbing through the pages of a photo book, the scene before you is rendered flat."

"O could remember being driven to school by his Mum when he was 12 years old. It was a 15 minute drive through the English countryside, an idyllic place of rolling fields and woodland. It was 2003, and the invasion of Iraq had started, and everyday O heard updates on the conflict, how far their troops were advancing, the death toll (not the Iraqis), international reactions, the markets. Turmoil, folly, hubris, dressed up in BBC English, in the same tone that the weather was read out in. O would get out the car with his school bags and sports gear, he’d think about the people in the country, his town, the street he was on, people walking past him, and try to square it with his sense of unease at what he was hearing. His country was at war, it was such a strange thing to think of. It was in the process of committing such sin, sending people dead into the dirt, while everyday life around him remained the same. There was a constant feeling of dissonance about it, that draped a constant uneasy backdrop to the ensuring years of his teenage-hood."

"Gilgamesh, the ancient king of Mesopotamia, crossed waters by boat in search of immortality. Unlike Gilgamesh, O wasn’t too sure what he was doing there. He was collecting his first dots, his first stars, and the constellation didn’t make sense yet. While in the boat, an American journalist remarked about the Tigris river, about where it flowed, and all that it could see. Jake asked me to imagine the path of the river, and to place myself in its waters, and to make the river a witness. O told himself that the river has a memory. The river watches over the on-going civilisations, seeing the signs, symbols and patterns of life fade away over time. Re-emerge many lifetimes later, though their former meanings may be forgotten. Like the erosion and break up of rocks into pebbles in the river bed, memories fade and collect."

"Standing in the great expanse of the desert or mountains of Oman, all alone, O found a certain awe in the world around him, that can only be found when alone in it with oneself. He was able to find places like this all over the world, and back in his own country, but while he was still finishing off his projects in Iraq, it seemed relevant to make the work in Middle East, like an extended outro. He’d often find himself wandering the peripheries of places, and then out of them entirely, to the deserts, the mountains, the rivers, the coast. He was drawn to bits of quiet, solemn beauty. All photographers strive to create beautiful images, they’d be lying if they said they didn’t. The world could feel full of let downs, broken promises and diminished expectations, and to dedicate himself to the pursuit of this beauty and magic could be seen as his way of resisting this evil, no matter how futile it may seem. Reminding himself that there is always something tender and lovely all around you was a way he liked to stay sane, because only a truly broken person has completely stopped seeing it."