All That Is Solid

About

This is the first show by a collection of young international photographers meeting in south east London and working across continents. Their work points the lens at urban living and environments. Each comes from a very individual perspective but certain commonalities surface, cluster, and disperse just as you go to grasp them. With the rapid fire of photography in our media, these artists offer a fresh perspective by bridging the gap between journalistic and fine art photography; suggesting a refocusing of the eye to look more critically at the environments and people that surround us. Random confluences, fleeting juxtapositions and the unintentional and overlooked within constructed environments rest lightly against the liminal communities created through shared public spaces and communal-private activities, such as swimming or traveling on public transport. The works examine how the idiosyncratic and the individual resist dissolution in the pull and flow of social movement. Strikingly different in their formal qualities, the images employ techniques from the low-fi and retro, such as Polaroid photography, through to capturing images from a helicopter, but all use an essentialness and simplicity of approach; these are images about how we construct and interpret images of the world outside, not self-referential comments on their technical construction. The artists exhibiting are all recent graduates of the Goldsmiths MA in Photography and Urban Culture. The academic rigor of the course is evidenced in the photographs which draw inspiration from issues raised in a wealth of social, cultural and anthropological theory. Each artist offers their own individual reflection on contemporary culture and as a group they represent an exciting and growing field of urban visual practice, method and enquiry. Sited in the decommissioned institutional space of a former police station in Deptford, the exhibition escapes the white cube of the everyday photography show, adding another layer of contingency to the images. The building is newly re-opened as artists' studios and project spaces but retains its original features. Accompanying the exhibition there will be a panel discussion and a workshop series for young adults. For more details of these and images of work see www.all-that-is-solid.net Exhibiting artists: Jasmine Cheng Jennifer Downing Eva Eicker Matthew Hanchard Sayed Hasan Kolbrun Helgadottir Jean-Pierre Hrubant Adelita Husni-Bey David Kileen Holly McGlynn Gosia Mieczkowska Rei Moon Danilo Murru Joaquin G. Novales Gonzalo Olmos Lorenz Widmaier