Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted, I can't remember which. At some point I started trying to take trains & ferries instead. Not especially because of a conscience about the environment, but because I discovered that I preferred the slower pace & time to watch the land and sea go by. Which felt like a more in depth connection to the destination and purpose of the journey.
Back home
Chris Daly | Erewhon
Organization: Citizen Reality
Photographer: Chris Daly
Organization: Citizen Reality
Exhibit Title: Back home
Location: Erewhon
This series, made over a number of years, explores journeys of discovery into another country that chance and circumstance diverted me from growing up and living in. As L.P. Hartley famously noted, “they do things differently there.”
I grew up in a Birmingham suburb as an adoptee, with no national identity at all. After filing the necessary forms in a wan, neon-lit office, I eventually stepped off an aeroplane to meet my parents. I began taking photographs on these subsequent trips “home.” The location remains anonymous; I like the idea that the viewer might try to guess where I was from, just as I did while growing up.
In contrast to suburban domesticity I grew up in, I found a rural landscape of outhouses, hardy men, and an impenetrable culture. This project is not an attempt at reclamation, but a diary, or lyrical documentary of curiosity. Through these signs - rust, twine, bruised skies, and ghost-like Madonnas, I explore an alternate identity, documenting the enduring presence of a home that remains both mine, but not mine.
I use two different approaches to take photographs – according to whether I’m actually ‘there’, in a real place that the picture reveals. Or away from the action - seeing and watching something vicariously, on the Internet, or TV. Either way, I take photographs of what I find.
Being in a real place with a camera and taking photographs is as straightforward as you might imagine. The second approach also involves a film based camera process – applied to imagery I appropriate and re-photograph from a screen. I call these pictures ‘Telescreens’.
There’s no hierarchy or boundary of subject matter across this mediated divide. But the Telescreens have metaphorical intent and sometimes include hidden, but deliberate changes and manipulations to the scenes portrayed to emphasise their aesthetic and allure.
The contrast between the visual syntaxes reflects how I engage with reality – actively, passively, and sometimes ambiguously.
The foundation of the work is an exploration of how the different manner of exposure affects our perception, interpretation of reality and muses on the idea of photographic authenticity.
The pictures offer an aimless mix of serendipity and a calculated desire for memorability.
cdaly@flexihouse.com
07793811178
https://www.instagram.com/citizen_reality/
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