Paul Seawright’s work represents subtle signs of conflict and social friction within the landscapes he photographs. Having grown up in Belfast, Paul began to photograph the signs of conflict in Northern Ireland. Photographing wasteland, debris
, and constructing meaning within an image, Paul embraced the fact that there was no real way to read an image.
By photographing locations where Paul grew up, his images hold a very personal connection with the photographer. However in the 70’s many photographers photographing the problems in Northern Island (such as riots and bomb attacks) had no relation to the area at all. Paul explains that these photographers were drawn to the drama in their documentary photographs. Unlike Seawright, they were not drawn to the ordinary and the otherness that gave Seawright a unique and deeper, self-reflective approach in documenting social conflicts.
Paul Seawright explained that the troubles in Northern Island was often very difficult to talk about, but art has a way of communicating in a very sophisticated manner because the audience can engage with the image. Seawright’s work was made for the gallery rather than editorial images. Paul was inspired by his tutor Colin Graham, whose work ’Troubled Land’ held subtle clues to investigate and understand the political undercurrent beneath the image. He was also inspired by the new colour photography of Sally Euclaire which you can see demonstrated in his work consisting of medium format subjective images within colour documentary.
Paul Graham’s ‘Troubled Land.’
Paul describes documentary photography as the ‘window in the world, a poetic mirror of oneself.’ I have often used described my past and present documentary photographs as ‘windows in time’ so I felt I could relate to this quite strongly. Paul went on to say; that due to photography being subjective and poetic, by looking at yourself, photography filters through your own experiences and as a result, they become part of your practition. (Again, this is something I can relate to. My work has continued evolving from one project to another ever since I did my personal, and vernacular project on my Nan and Grandad).
When Paul Seawright was 15 years old he used to keep a diary. Whilst writing details of ordinary life Paul wrote examples of the rising conflict in Northern Island. This diary captured crucial, and economical place and time. Themes which arise in my own documentary practice. However not only did Paul capture the culture of the time, he also demonstrated that normal life went on despite being punctured by economical problems. The diary represented that beneath the surface, things weren’t normal, and this is exactly what his photographs represent.
After developing an image and text relationship with photography and his diary, this led to a new project in the 80’s called ‘Sectarian Murders.’ By taking text from Newspaper reports, Paul Seawright would go back to the places where these murders happened and take a photograph. Again I felt a sense of relation to Paul Seawright’s practice because it portrayed a similar demonstration of me taking an archive picture from the past, and going back to that location to take a new photograph. However Paul’s project dealt with conflicting issues of religion, of people being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and killed. This project was Paul’s way of trying to make sense of the past. He noticed how the landscape repairs itself and although something bad happened there, everything continued as normal. By using built in flash- Paul created forensic-style images, and became interested in the otherness of death.
By applying text to the images, the photographs were immediately elevated. As a result you had to also read the image and imagine what happened, compared to actually seeing it happen. Paul photographed areas he grew up in in a similar manner with additional newspapers. Paul demonstrated that the space between image and text re-imagines the violence and makes you think.
Once these projects were complete Paul was unsure on what to do next. He acknowledges that it is hard to motivate yourself, something that he understands we will face when trying to find new projects after university. However Paul found his next project, ‘the orange order.’ Each image contained the colour orange is some way, lynne Connolly wrote for source; ’the images come together like some bizarre dream sequence, not necessarily following each other, but related none the less. The project was made in order to demonstrate what a space says about the conflict outside of the context, a theme similar to his previous projects. As a result the claustrophobic cropping produced uneasy and surreal results. By photographing the representation of conflict, rather than conflict itself, Paul’s images contained meaning and potential because they stood for the exhaustion of conflict at the time.
Other projects:
‘Police Force’ shows the fragments of Northern Ireland and the evocation of security, photographing police stations and working with the R.U.C for many months.
In the 1990’s there was a cease fire in Northern Island. During a two month residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 1977, Paul Seawright photographed the vernacular architecture of buildings in Belfast. Often articulating the signs of conflict, buildings closing down, and gates put up between communities.
In the lecture, Paul spoke about the problem he had creating work based on someones else’s agenda. ‘Conflicting account’ was a commissioned project where Paul was not in control of what he photographed. Having lived in Wales for thirteen years, he no longer felt that he had anything left to say about Northern Island, but he did it anyway. He also did a commission in Wales about missing people. The biggest challenge he faced when doing this project was how to maintain his style of subtlety. However this project evolved for Paul, and this project was also carried out in Northern Island.
Paul explains that he would take commissions on and then return and do his own projects, with his own style. This is what he did when photographing South Africa for his project ‘Invisible Cities.’ Again, Paul stuck to the his consistent style of work and avoided the journalistic cliché’s. As a result, Paul was always bringing Belfast with him.
Invisible Cities
‘Hidden’ 2002
Commissioned by the Imperial War Museum inLondon, ‘Hidden’ was Paul’s response to what was going on in Afghanistan, and he did it in a way that expressed his style. Photographs of minefields and battlesites acknowledge that almost everything in the conflict was hidden or invisible. As Seawright explained to us ‘Hidden conflict, Hidden threat, Hidden reasons.’ The above photograph was similar to Roger Fenton’s photograph ‘Valley of the shadow of death,’ in which a valley of cannonballs stood for the casualties of the Crimean War. With Paul’s connection to the Victorian photographer, Paul represents that nothing has changed. War is not beautiful, it’s about death and absence. Simon Norfolk was also photographing in Afghanistan around the same time as Paul. However Simon would only photograph the first few hours of the day and the last two hours of the day in order to get beautiful sunsets.
Paul highlights the fact that research is always key, and you must do a lot of it to fully explore the potential of your projects. Once he finds his locations, this determines where he takes the photographs. For example Paul’s ‘Volunteer’ project involved a lot of research in order to find the pop-up military recruitment stations around America. Starting in Texas, Paul Seawright visited over 500 military recruitment stations in fifteen states. This project was the one I related to the most because I had also spent hours researching the cinemas of Liverpool, to find them, and document them in a similar manner.
Paul moved to a digital Hassleblad and a 5D camera lens, whilst previous using a Mamiya 7 medium format camera, (the same camera I’ve been using for my cinema project). The shift to digital for Paul was merely so he could save the money for travelling rather than the expense of processing.
At the end of the lecture Paul advised that a list of keywords and ideas means that he doesn’t go astray in his projects, and whenever photographing people, build a relationship with them first. By introducing himself, before introducing the camera he can gain their trust and friendship.
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