The top ten include interviews with Chris Littlewood on the challenges and perks of his role, John MacLean on his series 'Hometowns', and Dewi Lewis on the photobook world.

With new content uploaded every week from our Showcases, Ideas Series, Digital Encounters and Instagram Takeovers, we know you may not get round to reading every Photoworks article.

But with holidays approaching, we thought this a good time to look back at the past twelve months and put together a selection of favourite interviews from 2017 you may have missed.

© Nico Krijno, Burning Wicker Chair, 2014, Courtesy Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam

Chris Littlewood

“As far as trends go, I have an uneasy relationship with that word and would actively stay away from anything overtly trendy. More interesting to me is finding unique voices amongst the sea of practitioners out there”.

Video Still © Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans

During Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, photographer Wolfgang Tillmans spoke about his career in conversation with Joanna Lowry.

Hometown of John Baldessari, National City, California © John MacLean, Flowers Gallery

John MacLean

“I think I’d come to a crossroads in my own work where I’d realised that every new photograph I take is, in part, an accumulation of other images I’ve seen in my life. This realisation might have been a source of anxiety… but I’m a pragmatist, so I thought, why not turn it into something positive?”.

Richard Mosse. Image from Incoming [2017], a book of still frames derived from Incoming, 2015–2016 – a three screen video installation by Richard Mosse in collaboration with Trevor Tweeten and Ben Frost. Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
Richard Mosse 

“There is the spectre of violence in all forms of photography, not simply within the echo of the word shooting, but in the history of photography too, most of which has evolved directly out of military research. That’s especially the case with the technology that I chose to work with to make Incoming, which is not generally available for consumer or professional use, and has been developed and produced by a multinational defence and security company that also produces cruise missiles, drones and other technologies”.

© Matthew Finn, from the series ‘Mother’

Dewi Lewis

“Ultimately there are a several key things that make a good photo book – the photographer has something to say and has found the way to say it, the input of the designer is a truly collaborative one, any text is there because of what it adds and not because of the writer’s reputation, the production is in keeping with the nature of the project etc.

Essentially everything in the book has a job to do – to present the work of the photographer in the strongest possible way”.

Watch: BPB16 Nigel Shafran in conversation with Francis Hodgson

Writer and critic, Professor Francis Hodgson chatted to Nigel about how he put together his BPB16 exhibition, the resulting works, his thoughts on the fashion industry and more during Brighton Photo Biennial 2016.

Detail in fire room, installation shot from ‘House of the Ballenesque’ at Les Rencontres d’Arles. Photo by Marguerite Rossouw

Roger Ballen 

“Documentary fiction depicts an aesthetic that contains aspects of documentation and imagination. The most effective photographs employing this style are ambiguous and enigmatic in which the viewer is unable to distinguish what is ultimately fact and what is fiction”.

 

Natasha Caruana 

Before the installation of her work Timely Tale, co-commissioned by HOUSE and Photoworks for HOUSE Biennial 2017, Natasha Caruana spoke to us about working with 360° film, and how her work relates to the HOUSE Biennial 2017 theme of Excess.

© Dominic Hawgood, CGI still from the series ‘Casting out the Self, 2017

Dominic Hawgood

“I started to digitally construct exhibitions as a response to limitations being experienced as an emerging artist. Casting Out the Self challenges the role of the gallery, and it poses a number of questions regarding the importance of the documentation. My argument is that documentation now carries an incredible weight… you only have to look towards social media to understand the power and consumption of imagery”.

© Julie Cockburn, ‘Merry Widow 3’.

Tom Lovelace

“During the last ten years or so I have developed two to three exhibition ideas that I believed to hold potential, be insightful and compelling. These have existed in my head and nestled within my sketchbooks as working ideas: simmering and developing over a number of years”.

For more from our Ideas Series, click here. 

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