Suchergebnisse

Research in its various forms is inherent within all my projects now, but this has not always been the case. Undertaking a PhD strongly influenced my ideas about the nature of research and how as part of the creative process it is imperative to have an in-depth under - standing of the subjects that interest me. All my work prior to that point had been documentary in approach and had a very strong polemic. The projects were concerned with my personal take on social or political issues and, looking back, I see how this was a rather self-righteous attempt to set the world to rights, and I was becoming uneasy about it. Not only about my own work, but also about quite a lot of the work that I was seeing at the time, and I know exactly when that started. I had just come back from Chernobyl where I had been photographing within the exclusion zone. A no-entry area with a 30-kilometre radius that was evacuated after the nuclear meltdown at the Chernobyl Power Plant in 1986. The area contained one major city, Pripyat, and over 70 villages and scores of farms. The people living in these locations were given 24 hours to gather their possessions and were then moved to locations around the Ukraine, in most cases never to return. On my arrival back in the UK, the press had written about my having risked my life in such a dangerous place, which wasn't the case. I'd gone there, taken some photographs and then left again with everyone patting me on the back and saying I was a hero; but I was just a glorified tourist who chose to go there. The people affected by the disaster in Chernobyl had no choice but to live with the consequences every single day of their lives.

The book 'Land matters: landscape photography, culture and identity' features images from John Darwell's 'Dark Days' (2001) series, including 'Hadrian's Wall'. Text on the photographer's practice/history is provided by author Liz Wells. In this major work on landscape photography, extensively illustrated in colour and black & white, Liz Wells is concerned with the ways in which photographers engage with issues about land, its representation and idealisation. She demonstrates how the visual interpretation of land as landscape reflects and reinforces contemporary political, social and environmental attitudes. She also asks what is at stake in landscape photography now through placing critical appraisal of key examples of work by photographers working in, for example, the USA, in Europe, Scandinavia and Baltic areas, within broader art historical and political concerns. This illuminating book will interest readers in photography and media, geography, art history and travel, as well as those concerned with environmental issues.

In February 2001 foot and mouth disease arrived in Cumbria. At its peak Cumbria was the worst affected county in Britain with a staggering 41% of all cases. For the local community the environmental and social consequences were to prove devastating. As a local resident, John Darwell found himself surrounded by the effects of the disease. Over the next twelve months he committed himself to recording what was taking place. Despite government reports to the contrary, the Cumbrian countryside became largely a 'no-go' area, whilst on the farms thousands of animals were destroyed, their bodies burnt on the now notorious pyres. The ultimate cleanup of the infected farms led to extraordinary lengths being taken to eradicate the virus. Dark Days represents one of the most complete records of this time and provides a powerful and emotive insight into one of the most dramatic and destructive periods in British farming history.