‘Lie of the Land’
UoP MA Photography Show 2022
An exhibition of work by MA Photography students
from the University of Portsmouth.
6th to 10th September 2022
Gallery Open daily 12-5pm
Lie of The Land is an exhibition of work produced and curated by students who are currently completing their MA Photography studies at The University of Portsmouth.
Lie of The Land
UoP MA Photography Show 2022
Lie of the Land is a term that can be understood both literally, in relation to a physical terrain, or figuratively, as a means to better understand the uncertain or unfamiliar. We each assess the lie of the land on a daily basis to keep ourselves feeling prepared and safe. Indeed, this is becoming increasingly prescient, with the lie of the land in a wider, more global sense, both geo-politically and environmentally, seeming so unstable.
As a phrase and title, Lie of the Land suggests discovery, a finding out of what things are really like. In pragmatic terms, we may consider photography as a useful means to achieve this and indeed, since its inception the photograph has been used as a tool to prove, uncover, reveal and picture unknown territory. But photography, despite appearances, is not so straightforward and the alternative definition of the word ‘Lie’ also becomes relevant here. Things are not always as they appear in photographs and photography is as likely to conceal, deceive and coerce as it is to render any truth.
The artists represented here are using photography as a means of discovery and research. Each are employing the photographic medium in order to highlight and interrogate their own areas of interest. As Masters students they are well aware of the duplicity of more culturally established applications of photography and are each, in their own way, utilising this uncertainty. It might be useful to consider the work on show here as ‘raising up to question’ rather than as attempting to reveal any truth or to prove a particular point (as is so often the case). This acknowledgment of uncertainty frees photography from a range of commonly held assumptions around verisimilitude and allows something more thoughtful and nuanced to emerge.
From a small cohort of six students from the MA Photography course at The University of Portsmouth we have an impressively diverse range of subject matter and approaches on display, reflecting a variety of cultures, backgrounds and approaches.
The work of Zhe Chen is deeply personal, relating to her own desires and how these play out in her dreams. Huma Ali’s work utilises sculpture and photography in order to draw out the embodied and cultural complexities of Motherhood whilst celebrating her own family. Issie Treacher mixes analogue and digital processes through collage, often picturing trees within an urban landscape, as a means to exploit photography’s inherent strangeness and how this relates to interior states. Caryl Borreta’s work focuses on the spaces created for animals kept in zoos. Caryl uses seriality and an objective approach in order to highlight the conflicting and complex nature of spaces that at once nurture, confine and display the animals that inhabit them. Akshayaa Bharathkumar is interested in how young Indian men see themselves and how their expression of sexuality is often shaped by cultural tradition and societal expectation. Mia Curtis-Mays is interested in the land and wilderness. Mia references the conventions of mapping through a variety of media as a way to question the very notion of wilderness as a possibility.
In this exhibition photography is utilised in an impressive variety of ways, opening up spaces in which we can consider the Lie of the Land in relation to a range of ideas. In each of these practices we see the personal and psychological intertwined with the political and cultural, and on a global scale, with artists from India, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and the UK. All the work here demonstrates that photography when employed in a critical and informed way can illuminate the Lie of the Land in productive ways. Not through any allusion to, or illusion of, truth but through a questioning, embrace and acceptance of the complexities and uncertainties that we each inhabit. Jonathan Baggaley MA Photography Course Leader
The University of Portsmouth 2022Instagram @lieofthelandshow
Contact 07888306497
thephotographerhuma@gmail.com
gradshowphotography2022@gmail.com
