My latest piece for Don't Panic online, reviewing the Leah Gordon exhibition of Haitian carnival performers is here:
http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/leah-gordons-voodoo-carnival
And below without pics, so you'd be better off clicking the link really.
To most people, Carnival means music, sequins, feathers, glitter, girls in minuscule costumes and men in drag, but for the residents of the small coastal town of Jacmel in southern Haiti, Carnival, or Kanaval, means (unsurprisingly for a country where the principal religion is Voodoo) scaring the shit out of each other. And men in drag.
There are processions of children in rags and chains, blacked-up ‘slaves', representations of mass murdering prison guards, and home-made costumes adorned with animal teeth. What the Haitian carnival lacks in glitz and glamour it makes up for in home-grown surrealism and metaphor.
British born photographer and documentary film maker, Leah Gordon, has built an extraordinary body of work exploring the fascinating traditions and culture of Haitian communities since her first trip to the island in 1991. In this exhibition at the Photofusion Gallery in Brixton she explores the characters and performers of Jacmel's annual Kanaval procession.
Taking them out of the context of the event, Gordon's photographs focus on individuals from the various performance troupes in isolation. In a departure from her documentary style, her subjects are posed which in this instance affords them a kind of control over their own narrative - a conceit aided by the fact that beside some of the photographs are paragraphs of text taken from conversations with the performer featured in the picture.
Their costumes and characters are steeped in history - the slaves' revolt and ancestral memories, inspired by folklore both local and imported from Europe and Africa. One troupe portrays the medieval Christian story of the ‘Wandering Jew'; condemned to walk the earth indefinitely after taunting Jesus on his way to crucifixion, he is depicted wearing a top hat and carrying a stick to beat away anyone who tries to get too close to him, so accustomed is he to being isolated. "It helps to be big", says one performer who boasts that he is the best person to play the Wandering Jew because he is tall and can scare the audience.
One man captured front-on in a very fetching off-the-shoulder lace number explains how his gender-bending interpretation of the Devil as a transvestite came to him in a vision when he was working on a sugar cane plantation in the Dominican republic.
If you've ever seen the impossibly cheesy James Bond film with Roger Moore, Live And Let Die, you'll be familiar with the Vodou aesthetic. It's actually very much in evidence in Gordon's photographs - there are definitely one or two Baron Samedis grinning back at you from the black and white medium format (perhaps unsurprising as the character's name is shared by one of the Haitian Loa, or deities).
Scary, satirical, sentimental and spectacular, Jacmel's communal creativity is vivid. Gordon's exhibition includes a short film depicting some of the characters from the carnival, which is compelling and at once nostalgic and contemporary.
Leah Gordon's Kanaval is on at Photo Fusion Gallery until 24 April. Voodon't miss it. More info hereSee more of Leah's work at www.leahgordon.co.uk
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Monday 16 March 2009
Interview with author Pat W. Hendersen...
Here:
http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/decade
And here:
A new novel about drug dealing and the Scottish rave scene, but it's not written by Irvine Welsh? Exploring a side of Scots culture that most St. Andrews undergrads will never see, Pat W. Hendersen spins an allegedly fictional tale of a major drug deal gone wrong.
To say that everyone has a past is a hoary old cliche. What it really means is that everyone has a naughty past, which is probably universally true. Look no further than any of your friends’ online photos and you’ll see evidence of such history in the making.
Very respectable and sensible businessman turned novelist Pat W. Hendersen has decided to fictionalise his own despicable exploits for his debut novel, Decade (originally titled Five hundred disco biscuits). The action is played out during the Scottish rave scene of the late 80s and early 90s. Published this week, Decade centres on the unlikely friendship of Martin and Colin and follows them as they haplessly navigate dodgy drug deals, football hooliganism and Scotland's underground rave scene.
Hendersen has protested in interviews that, although the novel is based on his own experiences, it is not autobiographical and the characters are entirely fictional. In an informal setting, I probed him for the dirt, the truth and the stories.
So, is 'fictional' just a tag for dodging lawsuits?
It’s like the start of Anchorman; “The book is based on a true story. Only the names, dates and events have been changed.” I can honestly say that the main event of the characters Colin and Martin meeting and all the major events of fighting, jail-time and drug deals gone wrong are complete fiction. Background events may have happened. The Cosmos & Rhumba clubs are all pretty accurately based on fact and the characters are definitely an amalgam of people I met but not to the extent that anyone reading would be able to say ‘That’s me, that is!’
Are you still in touch with any of the people you reference from you own past in the book, or have you re-invented yourself in a completely new life?
Yeah, I still have contact. I don’t live far away from Dundee now and still enjoy the odd night out there. Moving away in the first place wasn’t an attempt to re-invent myself. I’ve no interest in re-inventing myself and hope I never do!
You write under a pen name - is this because you wish to remain anonymous for safety reasons?
Trust me, I’ve no reason to fear my safety. Sure a few football casuals may be upset at their portrayals in the book but football casuals fall into two categories. There’s the proper nutters who won’t be offended in the slightest and who know me anyway and then there’s the bottle merchants who... Well, they’re bottle merchants, so what do I care.
There will inevitably be comparisons drawn between you and Irvine Welsh - how do you plan to answer those?
Firstly I should say I’m a fan of Irvine Welsh. I do however think that any comparisons are tenuous and based really only on the overt Scottishness of the stories. I actually think that it’s unfair to even compare Irvine Welsh with Irvine Welsh. By that I mean, compare books such as Marabou Stork Nightmares with Crime, for instance. Both are completely different stories with only the theme of sex crime really linking them. The marker for Welsh will always be Trainspotting though, won’t it? The difference between my stories and his is that Welsh injects more fantasy. You couldn’t really read Trainspotting as a story that might have actually happened. You probably could with Decade.
Why do you think there have been so many stories told about the Scottish rave scene and comparatively so few stories about the English rave scene?
Cue incredibly pretentious answer. Nah, not really. I didn’t sample that much of any particular English scene, but what I did sample was no less vibrant or vital. I think it’s more to do with the Scottish disposition to tell stories. Something we share with the Irish I think. Not to decry English literature but if you look at the size and population of Scotland that’s a hoor of a lot literature we’ve lent the world (Burns, Scott, Lois-Stevenson, et al). Equally it might well have been that English clubbers were too busy having the times of their lives to be sitting behind a word processor. Yeah… Probably that actually.
There is an element of anti-drugs moral to the story, was your intention to make a statement against drugs with this book?
Not anti-drugs, no! I couldn’t really do that, it would be a bit hypocritical. The drugs message in the book is that if you rip the tits out of it, expect repercussions.
You're already writing a sequel, right? Can you give any teaser as to where the story is going to go in the next book?
Funny, I didn’t intend to write a sequel. I sat down to write another novel using some bit part characters from Decade but now that it’s about four chapters from a finished first draft, I might as well admit to myself; it’s a sequel. Writing is like that though. It can take you to places that you didn’t necessarily intend to go. So the second novel starts with a policeman named Clover who was very much involved with one of the protagonists from Decade, Martin Bridges. Never having met the other protagonist from Decade, Colin, before, Clover realises that Colin is a partner. And so the chase begins. But expect twists, that’s all I’m saying.
Decade is out now via Phoenix Publishing. For purchase information, click here
http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/decade
And here:
A new novel about drug dealing and the Scottish rave scene, but it's not written by Irvine Welsh? Exploring a side of Scots culture that most St. Andrews undergrads will never see, Pat W. Hendersen spins an allegedly fictional tale of a major drug deal gone wrong.
To say that everyone has a past is a hoary old cliche. What it really means is that everyone has a naughty past, which is probably universally true. Look no further than any of your friends’ online photos and you’ll see evidence of such history in the making.
Very respectable and sensible businessman turned novelist Pat W. Hendersen has decided to fictionalise his own despicable exploits for his debut novel, Decade (originally titled Five hundred disco biscuits). The action is played out during the Scottish rave scene of the late 80s and early 90s. Published this week, Decade centres on the unlikely friendship of Martin and Colin and follows them as they haplessly navigate dodgy drug deals, football hooliganism and Scotland's underground rave scene.
Hendersen has protested in interviews that, although the novel is based on his own experiences, it is not autobiographical and the characters are entirely fictional. In an informal setting, I probed him for the dirt, the truth and the stories.
So, is 'fictional' just a tag for dodging lawsuits?
It’s like the start of Anchorman; “The book is based on a true story. Only the names, dates and events have been changed.” I can honestly say that the main event of the characters Colin and Martin meeting and all the major events of fighting, jail-time and drug deals gone wrong are complete fiction. Background events may have happened. The Cosmos & Rhumba clubs are all pretty accurately based on fact and the characters are definitely an amalgam of people I met but not to the extent that anyone reading would be able to say ‘That’s me, that is!’
Are you still in touch with any of the people you reference from you own past in the book, or have you re-invented yourself in a completely new life?
Yeah, I still have contact. I don’t live far away from Dundee now and still enjoy the odd night out there. Moving away in the first place wasn’t an attempt to re-invent myself. I’ve no interest in re-inventing myself and hope I never do!
You write under a pen name - is this because you wish to remain anonymous for safety reasons?
Trust me, I’ve no reason to fear my safety. Sure a few football casuals may be upset at their portrayals in the book but football casuals fall into two categories. There’s the proper nutters who won’t be offended in the slightest and who know me anyway and then there’s the bottle merchants who... Well, they’re bottle merchants, so what do I care.
There will inevitably be comparisons drawn between you and Irvine Welsh - how do you plan to answer those?
Firstly I should say I’m a fan of Irvine Welsh. I do however think that any comparisons are tenuous and based really only on the overt Scottishness of the stories. I actually think that it’s unfair to even compare Irvine Welsh with Irvine Welsh. By that I mean, compare books such as Marabou Stork Nightmares with Crime, for instance. Both are completely different stories with only the theme of sex crime really linking them. The marker for Welsh will always be Trainspotting though, won’t it? The difference between my stories and his is that Welsh injects more fantasy. You couldn’t really read Trainspotting as a story that might have actually happened. You probably could with Decade.
Why do you think there have been so many stories told about the Scottish rave scene and comparatively so few stories about the English rave scene?
Cue incredibly pretentious answer. Nah, not really. I didn’t sample that much of any particular English scene, but what I did sample was no less vibrant or vital. I think it’s more to do with the Scottish disposition to tell stories. Something we share with the Irish I think. Not to decry English literature but if you look at the size and population of Scotland that’s a hoor of a lot literature we’ve lent the world (Burns, Scott, Lois-Stevenson, et al). Equally it might well have been that English clubbers were too busy having the times of their lives to be sitting behind a word processor. Yeah… Probably that actually.
There is an element of anti-drugs moral to the story, was your intention to make a statement against drugs with this book?
Not anti-drugs, no! I couldn’t really do that, it would be a bit hypocritical. The drugs message in the book is that if you rip the tits out of it, expect repercussions.
You're already writing a sequel, right? Can you give any teaser as to where the story is going to go in the next book?
Funny, I didn’t intend to write a sequel. I sat down to write another novel using some bit part characters from Decade but now that it’s about four chapters from a finished first draft, I might as well admit to myself; it’s a sequel. Writing is like that though. It can take you to places that you didn’t necessarily intend to go. So the second novel starts with a policeman named Clover who was very much involved with one of the protagonists from Decade, Martin Bridges. Never having met the other protagonist from Decade, Colin, before, Clover realises that Colin is a partner. And so the chase begins. But expect twists, that’s all I’m saying.
Decade is out now via Phoenix Publishing. For purchase information, click here
Julian Yewdall's exhibition...
With lovely pictures here:
http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/julian-yewdall
Or without pictures (and arguably, therefore, without point), here:
Back when Julian Yewdall was taking pictures of rock bands, being a photographer meant being a documenter, a chronicler; a diarist almost. Not an operator of some clinical tool for recording PR images. To mix my media similes, think Johnny Rotten on the Today show and then watch (if you can bear it) Donny Tourettes on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and shake your head in despair. Anyway, I digress.
For the past 40 years Yewdall has been working as a documentary film-maker and photographer and is primarily known for his early iconic images of Joe Strummer and The Clash. However, his latest exhibition, The Language Of The Eye, is a departure from his rock roots and although there is an inescapable candid authenticity, which gives a respectful nod to that period, this exhibition is much gentler and more passive than the aggressive posturing and live action of band reportage. Yewdall's documentarian eye is evident in the composition of all his pictures. From still life to portraiture, there is a sense of an implicit curiosity coming from behind the lens and a real affection for, and genuine interest in, his subjects.
The PR blurb for the exhibition is pretty concise generally, offering only the bare minimum of information about the photographer himself and entirely failing to include any mention of Yewdall's intention and ambition for The Language Of The Eye. Perhaps it has been left deliberately ambiguous because when viewing the exhibition, there doesn't seem to be any one unifying theme.
Instead we are presented with a kind of ‘collage' of images, which are simply studies of subjects that have pre-occupied Yewdall in the intervening years between his rock period and the present day. And those subjects are many and varied, spanning the breadth of Yewdall's imagination as his natural inquisitiveness propels him towards vivid colourful landscapes of blooming flowers in ‘Poppy Field, Greece', to anonymous black and white nudes, to gritty bikers in ‘Road Hogs, Rivington-Pike Free Festival, Lancs 1977', to the self-explanatory (and personal favourite of mine) ‘Geishas On A Train, Tokyo, 1986'. Some of the prints are grainy, unpolished, but you can forgive this because they are somehow made more tangible.
The Subway Gallery's intimate, subterranean space serves to bring cohesion to what is a quite disparate collection of photographs. Each image's proximity to the next helps to pass the baton of Yewdall's own narrative thread from the one to the other - as if they were distant relatives encountering each other for the first time and recognising their resemblances. The preview night in the small gallery is chaotic. Children weave in and out of the static adults, shrieking as they chase each other; everyone suspends their disbelief as one window of the gallery becomes a walk-thru burger kiosk - a prop in their boisterous game. Some of the adults join in, shouting orders through the glass slats. In the midst of it all stands Yewdall, unassuming and friendly, observing, recording but not disrupting; his pictures doing the talking.
The Language Of The Eye is on at the Subway Gallery, until 28 March www.subwaygallery.com
http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/julian-yewdall
Or without pictures (and arguably, therefore, without point), here:
Back when Julian Yewdall was taking pictures of rock bands, being a photographer meant being a documenter, a chronicler; a diarist almost. Not an operator of some clinical tool for recording PR images. To mix my media similes, think Johnny Rotten on the Today show and then watch (if you can bear it) Donny Tourettes on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and shake your head in despair. Anyway, I digress.
For the past 40 years Yewdall has been working as a documentary film-maker and photographer and is primarily known for his early iconic images of Joe Strummer and The Clash. However, his latest exhibition, The Language Of The Eye, is a departure from his rock roots and although there is an inescapable candid authenticity, which gives a respectful nod to that period, this exhibition is much gentler and more passive than the aggressive posturing and live action of band reportage. Yewdall's documentarian eye is evident in the composition of all his pictures. From still life to portraiture, there is a sense of an implicit curiosity coming from behind the lens and a real affection for, and genuine interest in, his subjects.
The PR blurb for the exhibition is pretty concise generally, offering only the bare minimum of information about the photographer himself and entirely failing to include any mention of Yewdall's intention and ambition for The Language Of The Eye. Perhaps it has been left deliberately ambiguous because when viewing the exhibition, there doesn't seem to be any one unifying theme.
Instead we are presented with a kind of ‘collage' of images, which are simply studies of subjects that have pre-occupied Yewdall in the intervening years between his rock period and the present day. And those subjects are many and varied, spanning the breadth of Yewdall's imagination as his natural inquisitiveness propels him towards vivid colourful landscapes of blooming flowers in ‘Poppy Field, Greece', to anonymous black and white nudes, to gritty bikers in ‘Road Hogs, Rivington-Pike Free Festival, Lancs 1977', to the self-explanatory (and personal favourite of mine) ‘Geishas On A Train, Tokyo, 1986'. Some of the prints are grainy, unpolished, but you can forgive this because they are somehow made more tangible.
The Subway Gallery's intimate, subterranean space serves to bring cohesion to what is a quite disparate collection of photographs. Each image's proximity to the next helps to pass the baton of Yewdall's own narrative thread from the one to the other - as if they were distant relatives encountering each other for the first time and recognising their resemblances. The preview night in the small gallery is chaotic. Children weave in and out of the static adults, shrieking as they chase each other; everyone suspends their disbelief as one window of the gallery becomes a walk-thru burger kiosk - a prop in their boisterous game. Some of the adults join in, shouting orders through the glass slats. In the midst of it all stands Yewdall, unassuming and friendly, observing, recording but not disrupting; his pictures doing the talking.
The Language Of The Eye is on at the Subway Gallery, until 28 March www.subwaygallery.com
Sunday 8 March 2009
I give you... Derelicte!!!
Model turned designer Erin Wasson really ought to shut the hell up about poor people having the 'best style' and how the homeless are so, you know, like, chic. Not only because, coming from a privileged super model (or coming from anyone really, but especially a privileged super model) it's just offensive; but also because, as a designer about to launch her first clothing range in stores, shouldn't her ambition be to sell us clothes, not give us reasons not to buy them (reason 1 being that poor people will always be better dressed than people who can afford to buy her designer clobber anyway, and reason 2 being that the designer of that clobber is a patronising, vapid, idiot)?
In the Sunday Times Style magazine today she opened the vacuum inside her head for long enough to let the air rush in and displace this gem from her otherwise empty skull and into the tape recorder: "The poorest people have the best style — they don’t just walk into swanky stores and swipe."
Really Erin? So us poor recessionistas won't be needing to swipe any of your RVCA tat then.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article5838080.ece
And if you want to watch her hang herself with her own rope, read her feeble defence here (if you can manage to get to the end without your throat clenching shut in rage):
http://stylefrizz.com/200902/erin-wasson-on-homeless-chic-reloaded/
In the Sunday Times Style magazine today she opened the vacuum inside her head for long enough to let the air rush in and displace this gem from her otherwise empty skull and into the tape recorder: "The poorest people have the best style — they don’t just walk into swanky stores and swipe."
Really Erin? So us poor recessionistas won't be needing to swipe any of your RVCA tat then.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article5838080.ece
And if you want to watch her hang herself with her own rope, read her feeble defence here (if you can manage to get to the end without your throat clenching shut in rage):
http://stylefrizz.com/200902/erin-wasson-on-homeless-chic-reloaded/
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