The Representation of the Northern City in the Photography of John Davies (1981–2003)
2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14714787.2010.514749
ISSN1941-8361
Autores Tópico(s)Photography and Visual Culture
ResumoAbstract John Davies began making 'landscape photographs' of cities in the early 1980s. A period of prolonged visual and documentary research on Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle, began at a time when these cities were experiencing a deep economic recession brought about by the progressive dismantling of their historic industrial activities. This economic decline was further aggravated by a hostile political, economic and social climate in the 1980s following the election of Margaret Thatcher. Signs of the post-industrial regeneration process multiplied as cities endeavoured to reconstruct their images and identities. This essay looks at how the photography of John Davies has engaged with changes in the northern post-industrial city in the past three decades. It considers the ways in which his pictures reveal the city as a palimpsest: a narrative constantly written over. It examines how the work performs as both a document and an aesthetic commentary on the changes in the urban fabric, functioning as a metonymic image of the socio-political and economic transformations witnessed in the wider north of England. It ultimately underlines the capacity of the work to articulate historical awareness. The attention to history is explored within specific pictures, underlining their capacity to depict urban landscapes as specific process-based outcomes. In considering the indexicality of images within the body of the work, the essay also outlines the historical discourse that arises from visual intersections. Notes 1 Jonathan Glancey, 'Introduction', in John Davies, The British Landscape (London: Chris Boot, 2006), 5: 'Landscapes and townscapes between Cardiff and London, as with every other slice of corridor in Britain, are in a state of permanent flux: a Heraclitean fire where all that is solid, even in deepest winter, melts into air … Our British landscape is changing at a truly sensational pace today, the greater part of it in all too lurid colours.' See also Michael Wood, 'Introduction', in John Davies, A Green and Pleasant Land (Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications, 1987). 2 Ian Walker, 'Transitions', in John Davies, Cross Currents (Manchester and Cardiff: Cornerhouse Publications, Ffotogallery, 1992). 3 John Davies, The Valley's Project (Cardiff: Ffotogallery, 1985) and In the Wake of King Cotton (Rochdale: Rochdale Art Gallery, 1986). The three booklets, The Cotton Landscape, Into the Mills and The Changing Past, were accompanied by a text by Rob Powell. 4 Stephen Edgell and Vic Duke, A Measure of Thatcherism: A Sociology of Britain (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1991), 1–20. 5 John Davies, http://www.johndavies.uk.com/metropoli.htm 6 John Davies in interview with the author, 11 May 2007. 7 Ibid. 8 Edgell and Duke, A Measure of Thatcherism, 3–4. 'Stagflation' was the previously unknown combination of economic stagnation with high inflation. 9 Geoff Green, 'The New Municipal Socialism', in The State or the Market: Politics and Welfare in Contemporary Britain, eds. Martin Loney, Robert Bocock, John Clarke, Allan Cochrane, Peggotty Graham and Michael Wilson (London: The Open University Press/Sage, 1991 [1987]), 273–291. 10 Ibid., 278–279. 11 Nigel Harris and Ida Fabricius, Cities and Structural Adjustment (London: Routledge, 1996), 206. South Yorkshire County Council was abolished in 1986. 12 Ibid. 13 http://arts.guardian.co.uk/graphic/0,,2266892,00.html 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this view of Sheffield in 1981 was a scene of beauty to me. It was taken on a day when the sun was struggling to make an impact through the cloud, at about four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Most people probably would have thought it was a pretty grey and dismal day, but there was something going on in the sky' (John Davies). 14 Davies, A British Landscape, 24. 15 Martin Johnes, 'Pigeon-Racing and Working-Class Culture in Britain, c.1879–1950', Cultural and Social History 4, no. 3 (2007): 361–383. 16 Ge´rard Genette, Palimpsestes: la littérature au second degré (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1982), 9–10. Genette defines as paratexts the different texts that accompany the main body of text in literature, such as titles, forewords, tables and illustrations. In considering visual materials, we can include legends and titles as images' paratexts, as well as these longer verbal descriptions by John Davies, which provide additional information and commentary. 17 Graeme Rigby in interview with the author, 10 March 2008. Amber has been an important organization in John Davies' career. They commissioned him and Isabella Jedrzejczyk in the early 1980s to photograph Druridge Bay, where there were plans to develop a nuclear power station. He was also commissioned to document Durham mining industry in 1983. More than twenty years later, Amber also asked the photographer to come and look back at the Durham site, as well as the development in the Newcastle urban area. 18 Connections, Six Artists Linking Two Cities (Manchester: Cornerhouse; Liverpool: Open Eye, 1986). The Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool also participated in the display. 19 Parkinson, 'Introduction', in Connections, 8. 20 Rob Powell, 'John Davies: A Green and Pleasant Land', in Davies, A Green and Pleasant Land, 1987. 21 http://www.shipcanal.co.uk/manchester-ship-canal 22 Adrian Henri, 'Mersey Words', in Connections, 26. 23 The Plaza was a 1930s cinema which was turned into a bingo hall in the 1960s. 24 Davies in interview with the author. 25 http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/albertdock/creatingamuseum.asp The Maritime Museum was opened for a trial season in 1980, but it was then incorporated within the Merseyside Development Company project. It was thus relocated in the Albert Docks in 1984, before moving to the completed block D in 1986. 26 Steven Miles and Malcolm Miles, Consuming Cities (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 27 Parkinson, in Connections, 11. 'No other English region contains two such giants competing for dominance. However, Manchester has obviously now won the battle at Liverpool's expense. It is quite clearly the capital of the region. The presence of regional headquarters of government and national and multi-national corporations, its flourishing service sector of banking, insurance and finance, the computer industry, the media, advertising agencies, its major international airport, all testify to Manchester's victory in the regional economic stakes.' 28 Steve Quilley, 'Entrepreneurial Turns', in City of Revolution: Restructuring Manchester, ed. Jamie Peck and Kevin Ward (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 76–94. 29 Alan Cochrane, Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell, 'Olympic Dreams: Visions of Partnerships', in City of Revolution, 95–115. 30 Urbis has always been more about promoting the city of Manchester than exploring aesthetically or academically the contemporary urban world. Its efforts, however, have not been sufficient, and it is currently being transformed into a Football Museum. 31 David Smith, North and South: Britain's Economic, Social, and Political Divide (London: Penguin, 1994 [1989]). 32 Augustus Pugin, Contrasts (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1969 [1836]). 33 Alex Stetter, ed., Pride of Place: How the Lottery Contributed 1 Billion to the Arts in England (London: Arts Council of England, 2002). 34 Newcastle and Gateshead also went on to launch a joint bid to become Capital of Culture in 2008. The parallel trajectories of northern cities are exemplified by the fact that it was Liverpool which eventually won the competition. 35 Davies in interview with the author. 36 Glancey, in The British Landscape. 37 http://www.ourground.net 38 Stephen Bann, Romanticism and the Rise of History (New York: Twayne, 1995). 39 Genette, Palimpseste, 11–12. 40 Patrick Wright, On Living in an Old Country (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 [1985]), 28–83. 41 Declan McGonagle in interview with the author, 11 June 2008. McGonagle, in his pioneering work as curator of the Orchard Gallery in Derry in the 1980s, had encouraged artists to enter into a process of negotiation with the city, its history, its inhabitants and its environment. This enables the work to mediate as well as to engage with the specific context in which it finds itself.
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