My photographic research practice is focused on the collective and personal imaginations of our landscapes. Combining picture ‘writing’ with walking and oral history research, I’m exercised by the potential of photography to communicate patterns of silence, past forgotten or marginalised events and their remaining emotional charge.
The questions of how memories and affect are carried across generations motivates my approach, which may be compared to an archaeological re-calling of relatable narratives and often traumatic community events.
Having been immersed in photographic practices before, during, and after the transition from analogue to digital, my approach combines ‘classic’ slow capture with ‘light-painting’ in post-production. This process may be seen as a hybrid of documentary and sculptural modes, encouraging a ‘haptic’ or immersive viewing.
Having studied Fine Art in Switzerland, Germany, and England, I work as a photography academic at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. I’m completing part-time PhD studies with the title: ‘Vestiges of affect: A photographic re-calling of a forced migrant community’s landscapes, real and imagined’. This project is part of a wider investigation into the communication of affect in landscape photography, in this case following a traumatic and sudden uprooting during conflict close to the end of the 2nd WW in Masuria, Poland, then East Prussia.