Ten things to take with me

Hillman, John (2013) Ten things to take with me. In: Regionalism & Representation, University of Warwick.

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Abstract / Summary

Based within the context of community learning/participatory photography projects this paper will investigate the work and challenges associated with using photography as a tool for enquiring into the relationship between people and place through a process of representation. It will also consider photography as a method for articulating research ideas. The research study is ongoing and has been undertaken as part of a PhD research project entitled: Representing communities and the post-industrial landscape in the shadow of the “Cornish Alps” currently in its second year. This research aims to establish whether representations of the landscape impact on the community living in it. The focus of the enquiry is to identify whether a process of representation alters the relationship between people and place asking whether practice can “interpellate a subject of the signifier” (Burgin, 2011).

Don Slater states; a “diorama - like most illusionism, and particularly like photography – is a demonstration of a technical power to transform the material of the world into representation.” (Slater, 1995) By considering the “Cornish Alps” as a diorama, a representation of landscape, the focus of the research will be to engage with the socio-economic relations (Benjamin, 1931) in the region and the relationship between a subject and its representation and establish whether arts practice can have a transformative impact on these conditions.

Through community based workshops and photographic assignments participants have presented their memories, their lives and the places where they live using digital photography. “Ten things” refers to the series of images they have produced and the personal responses they have given when presenting their work. Through their photographs, the research examines how the participants have developed and modified their vision of the world around them and seeks to identify whether and how the creative practice of photography can be used as a research tool and where it may sit within a wider context of arts based practice research.

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