Source
Winter 2004

In the last issue of Source, David Bate asked what had happened to Postmodernism and discovered that it had been replaced with a new form of Realism. In this issue he describes this neorealism and shows how its strategies are present on television, in newspapers and in art galleries.

Alicia Miller had the opportunity to compare the photography exhibited in UK galleries with that shown in the US when she moved to London from San Francisco in 2001. She also noticed a preponderance of work relating to ‘the real’ in the UK, a trend she relates to the popularity of photography in art (as against photography) galleries and the recent declining fortunes of those photography organisations. She believes the tradition in photography organisations of fostering experimentation is the key to their future survival.

Simon Cunningham’s work investigates representation, dislocation, surface and spectacle. He considers his subjective experience of the world, the architecture of the camera and the production of the photographic object as his primary subjects. Key images in the work are of a pot hole in the landscape and a cave which serve as a surface rupture in the genre of landscape and as a potential entrance into the subconscious.

Justin Partyka’s ongoing project explores rural life in East Angtia, one of Britain’s prime agricultural regions. It is a place where tradition and change constantly collide, and which is both timeless and also in the throws of a major cultural transformation. The work examines traditional rural life as it struggles against a modern consumer society and the corporate agribusiness.

Claire Waffel’s images are an exploration of inter-generational relationships in her family. In these staged images of the photographer and her grandmother an intimate relationship is revealed through physical contact and the suggestion of a shared mental space. There is an awareness of lives at different stages, one looking forward and the other recalling a life already lived.

Source is a quarterly photography magazine, available in print and as a digital edition, published in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They publish emerging photographic work and engage with the latest in contemporary photography through news, thoughtful features and reviews of the latest exhibitions and books from Ireland and the UK. Their website brings together an archive of writing and pictures from the magazine alongside current features.¹