Communique: Winter 2023

I’ve been working through my archives of late with a view to exhibiting some of my photographs next Spring. It’s perhaps worth mentioning the origin of these images. Up until the pandemic I created a zine called ‘Torso’ which started off looking at the distortion of self because of societal expectation and social media influence. Like most projects though it morphed over time and the focus became more about what weighs the body down. Or more broadly how the outside world changes us, and the transiency of modern life.

There was also a desire to look at this idea of ‘worth’ of body. I could have kept on down the Victoria Bateman line but I think for me it became more about landscape rather than isolated form. I’ve just finished a piece that follows on from two walks with Willian Titley tracking the migration of the curlew. In it I find it hard to separate real Morecambe from imagined version brought on by programmes like ‘Hinterland’ or ‘Hidden’. This idea of isolated places where bodies are found. Delving deeper, it was also a place where we holidayed. Where me and my mum struggled to communicate our feelings after my brother had passed away.

As a creative I can’t get away from the fact that I am quite explicit both in terms of words and imagery. I know I will always struggle with the balance and lose some people along the way, It isn’t some endurance test just me trying to distil who I am into some artistic representation. With that in mind this is just to let you know that Communique will be coming back on the monthly basis from January 2024. As ever it will a brain dump of sorts. Thoughts on the passing of time and how things crumble. My life as elegy.

If I’m honest there was no real reason for it stopping in the first place. Maybe I felt that it would eventually become rote. Although I love writing I do struggle with the idea of writing about something specific over and over again. I thrive on whim and happenstance. But I’ll give it a go. I’m hoping for it to coincide with the rebirth of my Substack account which I’m going to use for the more poetic side of my work. Maybe to look back on what I wrote. I often delete things but it would be cool to revisit my ‘Torso’ zines and seeing if there were glimmers. Seeing when the schism seemed to come.