Some art is loud, it screams with its politics wears its heart on its sleeve. Other art is quiet and doesn’t say anything at all, its mute in its purposelessness. Curator and photographer Ashley Gallant says ‘I have never been interested in either. I am interested in the un-loud.’
This exhibition brings together three smaller displays of internationally recognised photographers that all share an uneasiness, or a feeling of the unfinished or unsaid in the photographs displayed under the theme of the unloud.
‘The unloud is Images, texts, art works that seem tranquil on the surface but contain a silent deafening scream. The landscape that hides the mass grave.The tree that hung the man.The village green, It’s like an M R James story, Oh, Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad’
Ashley Gallant presents work from his ongoing project unloud. Gallant attempts to photograph an uneasy feeling, and sense of ancientness or something just below the surface. By creating images of landscape, mixed with portraits of people involved in ancient traditions and images of sculptures he aims to present us with his own perception of the unloud, an little English Magic.
Gallant splits his time between being the curator of the Ruskin Collection, Millenium Gallery, Sheffield and undertaking an PhD in the history of Art at the University of Nottingham. In Sheffield he works on making Victorian collections relevant to today’s issues such as climate change and craftivism. His PhD looks at how to challenge copyright law to make works of art in public ownership more usable. He has worked in museums for the past twelve years and has curated exhibitions on Henry Moore, Picasso, Carl Andre, Lewis Baltz and Old Master Drawings from Chatsworth House. As an artist he has had exhibitions in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin and Karlsruhe. This is his first display of photography in a Public Gallery.
Website: ashleygallant.co.uk
Instagram: @a_d_g_photos
Charles Fox presents his latest book project Hidden. The book displayed is a result of a long-term dialog with a Cambodian family and retraces the journey they made through the Cambodian landscape during the rule of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979). During this period, they carried 97 family photographs which they hid to protect the family from the regimes purge of the urban and educated classes. The work attempts to articulate both the original and retraced journey and the family narrative; the book also acts as an artifact which has been a prompt in the dialog, and a continued site of production as well as a representation of the journeys.
Fox is a photographer and practice-based researcher working with a focus on visual methodologies and collaborative community-based practice. Splitting his time between the UK and South East Asia, Charles has worked in Cambodia since 2006.
Website: www.charles-fox.com
Website: www.catfish.asia
Instagram: @charlesfox
unloud: Group Show
The unloud group show brings together artists associated with Make it Easy and Take it Easy photo labs, as well as further afield. Chosen from an open call by Fox and Gallant. The works are chosen for their relationship to the feeling of the unloud. An uneasy, uncomfortable or unspoken idea happening behind the image or just below the images surface.
The exhibition includes work by
Aaron Hardin, Tennessee, U.S.A (Magnum Fine art Photo award 2016, New York Times, The New Yorker)
Luke Harby, Northampton, U.K. (open eye gallery, Humble arts foundation New York)
Tom Martin, Newark, U.K. (National Geographic, Vogue (Italia), The Times, The Guardian)
Group Show Artists
Teyte Batten, Craig Bates, Callum Beany, Tamara Clarke, Michael C Coldwell, Leigh Cornish, Philip Formby, Nicholas Fisher, Natasha Ensell, Jack de Aguilar, Daniel Jefferies, Kelvin P. Coleman, Luke Harby, Aaron Hardin, Christopher Orr, Safina Jawed, Callum McNab, Tom Martin, Rita Pena, Alan Silvester, Charlie Valentine, Daniel T Wheeler, Sam Winton
