Free Range 2016 | Week 1 Roundup

It’s that time of year again, where students from universities up and down the country descend upon The Truman Brewery to showcase their final year degree projects at the Free Range exhibitions. Free Range has been running since 2001, and is a fantastic platform for students from creative degree courses, such as fashion, art, design and photography, to showcase their talents. The photography exhibitions are split over 2 weeks, with a total of 26 universities exhibiting work, from Edinburgh to Falmouth.

Students and tutors spend two days armed with drills and hammers, building walls, painting, and installing work, to transform their block from a warehouse style space, into a creative hub. This year, eight universities moved into the space for the first week of the photography shows, kicking off proceedings with an opening night, where family, friends and professionals are invited to come along and celebrate with the students. The show then extends over the weekend with the gallery space opening to the public.

Photography week 2 starts on 30 June with another opening night, where students from universities such as Derby, South Wales and East London will be showcasing their talents. Entry is free, and a full list of all the universities exhibiting, plus student galleries can be found on the Free Range website.

Here’s a round up of some of our favourite work from week 1. The work was hugely diverse, spanning the whole spectrum of photography, from documentary, fashion, commercial and portraiture, to conceptual and fine art.

Photography Degree Show 2016, The University of Westminster

Mary Woolf’s series ‘The Yorkshire Dales’ was a definite eye catcher within the Westminster University block. Stretching across a long wall, her images turn traditional landscape photography on it’s head and replaces it with bold colours, sharp lines and graphic style. ’We are so used to seeing detailed representations of the world that we no longer notice them.’

Tracey Chau’s series ‘The Rise of Modern China’ represent several different layers of meaning, with her handmade dresses featuring images onto delicate fabric. Tracey told us that in this project she ‘explores the visionary project of China’s booming economical growth on an international scale, contrasting the poorer conditions the majority of the Chinese population live in, using qipao tailoring as a comment on the modernisation of Chinese traditions.’

Liz Benjamin’s ‘GREY’ is a series of colourful numbered prints which spark your intrigue and draw you in to her space, where you are presented with a sensitively shot book focusing on greyhound racing. Liz told us ‘I had quite fixed ideas about greyhound racing before I started the project but as I started to photograph it I realised that I had conflicting feelings. My fears for the safety and welfare of the dogs came up against a sense of nostalgia, a sense of loss should the tracks ever finally be closed. I didn’t really expect this conflict and ‘GREY' explores this struggle by looking at the space between the polarised stances of the racing industry and those who would see racing banned.’

Surface, The University of East London

Emily Usher’s ‘The Groundskeeper’ shot at Leyton Orient football ground showed the meticulous care that goes into maintaining a busy football ground. Emily carefully selected the vibrant shade of green for her feature wall to represent the grass which Colin so carefully tends.

Nasir Uddin’s ‘East Side Stories’ shows the gritty and sometimes dangerous reality of growing up in East London with a larger than life book offering up personal stories from his subjects.

‘The Unspoken’ by Samantha Dyer aims to tell the stories of war veterans, and pass down memories for future generations. Her mixture of prints, audio, a detailed book, and artifacts which she borrowed from the veterans themselves was carefully curated and gave a real sense of history and nostalgia. She told us ’I was watching Remembrance Day and felt so many emotions, and so proud. So I put together a book for younger generations to be able to hear first hand stories from the veterans.’

Exordium, Falmouth University

Richard Harrison’s work was like nothing else we saw at Free Range, and is definitely worthy of a mention. Adorning a large wall near the entrance to the Falmouth exhibition, ’Show Car Showdown’ forms part of a wider series ‘Carscarscars’ focusing on the modified car subculture and ‘fetishizes the mechanical through manipulation and presentation.'

‘Yoyuu’ by Hattie Ellis is based around the Japanese concept of the imagined space that we create in order to ‘mentally compose and gain a feeling of calmness’. The green and pink tones of the work, her use of natural light, and the addition of a living plant brought a zen like feeling of peace to the exhibit.

Tyler O’Brien’s YOUth magazine was another eye catcher, with aims to highlight the sexualisation of youth within fashion photography. Her clever use of space, with bold vibrant colours reminiscent of youth culture, resembled a teenager’s bedroom, and drew us into her work. Tyler told us 'the main inspiration for my work came from alternative fashion magazines such as Dazed and I-D. I wanted to create a series of work which pushes boundaries, interacts with an audience of all ages and also follows social issues surround youth sexualisation.'

Napier Collective, Edinburgh Napier University

Denitsa Toshirova's eye catching series ‘Denied’ features portraits of people with their backs to the camera, breaking the traditional conventions and rules of passport photography, aiming ‘to open up a wider debate around the power of looking, focusing on the viewer’s individual interpretation as a means of exploring stereotypes and common prejudice.’

In ‘An End of Terms’ Rosie Davison explores themes of personal nostalgia and community identity as she returns to her former school during it’s relocation to new purpose built premises. ‘As community and unique building are pulled apart, can the essence of the Duchess’s Community High school survive in a standardised and potentially characterless institutional building?’

Vemödalen, Plymouth College of Art

Shot as part of a collaboration with the Natural History Museum, Jodie Davies’ project ‘Entropy and the Perfected State’ was our pick of Plymouth’s work. Depicting a series of preserved lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), the images are presented as rows, in a uniform manner, just as they would be in a museum. With echoes of John Fowle’s ‘The Collector’ the work explores ‘human nature and our inability to let go of what we deem beautiful’.

Size Matters, University of Roehampton

Yusmin Khan’s series ‘The Resting Asshole Face’ was the attention grabber within the

Roehampton block, featuring an entire wall of larger than life male portraits; their expressions depicting the male equivalent of ‘the resting bitch face’, a slang term which has it’s origins in social media.

‘The Unseeable Borders of Gorazde’ by Callum Scott is a more serious and intimate piece, and is an ‘exploration of the aftermath of conflict and the seemingly invisible new borders surrounding the Bosnian city of Gorazde’. The two images on the wall, both with similar composition and leading lines, lure you towards the work and invite you to look further through his thought provoking book.

Crazy, Northbrook University Centre

The work within Northbrook University Centre’s exhibition had an arty vibe to it, and the stand out piece for us was Marika Algar’s intricate salon hang. Presented in ornate frames, the series depicting opulent Victorian and Steampunk outfits, conjured up feelings of olde world extravagance.

Swansea College of Art

Elinor Moore’s project began two years ago as a way of documenting power stations within the landscape. What is interesting about this body of work is that the focus shifted, and Elinor began to uncover communities that have been created and affected by these power stations, whether it be local people whose families have worked there for generations or others whose aim is to help those affected by accidents that have happened at the plants.

Dafydd Williams’s photojournalistic piece featuring strong black and white portraits of his circle of friends are beautifully shot, with the images giving a real sense of intimacy, and an insight into his close circle of friends and skate subculture.

With a table of seemingly random curios, Ole Nesset’s series ‘Shedding Velvet’ feels like a mystery that you must first unravel. After leafing through the book on display and looking more closely at the objects presented, it becomes apparent that this project is a commentary on hunting, with the accompanying prose by Edmund Selous offering haunting undertones. ‘But now that I have watched birds closely, the killing of them seems to me as something monstrous and horrible; and, for every one that I have shot, or even only shot at and missed, I hate myself with an increasing hatred.’ (Edmund Selous, Bird Watching, 1901)