6th Oct 2012 - 4th Nov 2012
University of Brighton Gallery and Sallis Benney Theatre
Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space
#BPB12
The Photoworks Brighton Photo Biennial will once again bring international and emerging photographers and artists to the city. Brighton will be populated by free exhibitions, new commissions, events and interventions, at a host of established and more unusual venues across the city’s urban landscape.
Following the 2010 Biennial curated by Martin Parr, which saw over 60,000 visitors, the 2012 edition is curated and produced by Photoworks, the UK’s leading visual arts agency for photography. It includes work by Edmund Clark, Omer Fast, Julian Germain, John "Hoppy" Hopkins, Jason Larkin, Trevor Paglen, Corinne Silva, Thomson & Craighead and more, Brighton Photo Biennial 2012 (BPB12) and will examine a wide range of photographic practices, collectively reflecting on ‘Photography and The Politics of Space’.
The Biennial’s curated programme is accompanied by the vibrant open submission festival Brighton Photo Fringe www.photofringe.org.
All exhibitions and installations are free to access. Some workshops, Q&As and screenings have ticket prices attached. Full details to be announced.
Saturday 6 October
11.00am-5.30pm
Venue: Sallis Benney Theatre
Opening weekend discussion day
Marking the opening weekend of BPB12, a series of discussions with artists, writers and curators will explore the ideas behind this year's Biennial. Open to all, the day will be suitable for students, practitioners and anyone who wants to find out more about the thinking behind this year's festival.
Confirmed Speakers include: Celia Davies, Benedict Burbridge, Corinne Silva, Thomson & Craighead, Julian Germain, T J Demos, Jason Larkin, Ronnie Close, Silvia Mollicchi, David Batty, Omer Fast, Edmund Clark, Julian Stallabrass.
University of Brighton Gallery exhibitions
Saturday 6 October - Sunday 4 November
Mon–Sat 10.00am–5.00pm; Sun 11.00am–5.00pm
Five Thousand Feet is the Best: Omer Fast
The UK Premier of Omer Fast’s celebrated filmwork. A former drone operator tells how he controlled unmanned planes to fire at civilians and militia in Afghanistan and Pakistan from a Las Vegas Desert base. The project’s title refers to the ‘optimum’ firing position of the drone plane. Moving between fact and fiction, documentary and action film style, Five Thousand Feet is the Best juxtaposes the drone operator’s account with dramatisations of alternative scenarios, played out with an unforgettable ending.
(30mins: plays on the hour and every half hour during opening hours)
Uneven Development: Jason Larkin and Corinne Silva
Ueven Development pairs the work of two photographers who focus on the human and environmental impact of urbanization. Corinne Silva works along the overlapping borderlands of Africa and Europe. In Badlands she uses architecture and plastic in the southern Spanish landscape to explore connections between European leisure migrants and irregular African workers. In Imported Landscapes, Silva forces the global south into the global north by pasting Moroccan landscapes onto Spanish billboards to consider their ongoing trade, mobility and colonization.
Forty percent of Egyptians live on less than two dollars per day. In the newly constructed suburbs of Cairo, private gated communities aim to provide exclusive isolation for the city’s elite. Jason Larkin collaborates with The Guardian’s former Egypt Correspondent, Jack Shenker, to document the construction of these luxury suburban enclaves and the laborers who build them.
Control Order House: Edmund Clark
An examination of space, control and criminilisation. In December 2011, Edmund Clark was the first artist to be granted access to a house in which a person suspected of terrorist related activity had been placed under a Control Order. The 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act granted the Home Office the power to relocate any controlled person to a house in an alien town or city and impose strict conditions, similar to house-arrest. Since the Act, 48 people have been made subject to a control order. In these cases, the Home Office has chosen not to prosecute a controlee, nor revealed the full basis of the allegations against them, as evidence is based on intelligence sources they are unwilling to reveal publicly. The material Clark produced had to be screened by the Home Office and the controlled person's lawyers. Revealing the identity of the controlled person or the location of the house would be a criminal offence.
Sallis Benney Theatre
Tuesday 30 October - Sunday 4 November
Workshop: Magnum Photography Workshop Week (check online for details)
An intensive week of tutorials and workshops aimed at photographers of all capabilities who want to benefit form creative and professional feedback. Three Magnum photographers; Moises Saman, Mikhael Subotzky and Alessandra Sanguinetti, lead five days of classes for twelve students in an intensive program of photographic development.
Wednesday 31 October
2.00pm-5.30pm
Symposium: Visible Economies: Photography, Economic Conditions and Urban Experiences
Speakers include Eugenie Shinkle, Martin Newth, Fergus Heron
Photography developed with the rise of major cities during the last great period of globalization. The aim of this afternoon symposium is to explore and discuss some of the ways contemporary artists and photographers make current economic conditions visible through experiences of urban environments. Presented by the University Of Brighton.
Sunday 4 November (check online for details)
Screening: Magnum Photography Workshops
An evening presentation of work produced during this week's Magnum Photography Workshops with talks by the Magnum Photographers.
Tours starting from University of Brighton Gallery
Sunday 7 October
10.30am-2.30pm
Tour: Four Versions of Three Routes
Adam Murray from Preston is my Paris gives an alternative interpretation of Brighton’s landscape with an active tour of the site specific work commissioned for BPB12, Four Versions of Three Routes. Board the special BPB12 bus and Adam will give an introductory talk en route to the city's debated constituency borders. The group will be encouraged to create their own interpretations of the routes with their own cameras or cameraphones (some equipment will be provided). Bring a picnic and maybe an umbrella!
Thursday 1 November
1.00pm-2.00pm
Lunchtime Tour
Join a member of the BPB12 programming team for an informal guided tour of the Uneven Development, Five Thousand Feet is the Best and Control Order House exhibitions.
Friday 2 November
8.00pm-10.00pm
Tour: Late Night BPB12
A guided tour with Louise Purbrick and Anabella Pollen, lecturers in History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts discuss the concept of ‘the Other’ in Photography in a late night walking tour of BPB12 exhibitions across Brighton.
