Archival Thoughts - January
Archive Thoughts - Ginga!
Hello again, hope this musing finds you well. As I said at the beginning of the year I’m going to drop in a monthly ‘review’ of my archive, the plan is to take an image from that month, but it could be any year from 1990 to 2022. Thought those guides would tie them neatly together with other projects and times of the year, as this is the first it may need work on structure but as they say, if you never start, you never progress.
I started on the process of finding the first one, but which one to choose as flagbearer/representative of the whole shebang.…It was then I stumbled across one that got me the most recognition I think I’ve had (or not as the case may be as I was at an interview not long ago and the interviewer absolutely believed that someone else had done that!! Which led to a stickly rest of interview…)
For those that don’t know the story I shall briefly regale you some background now. It started many years ago when I was working nights, photographing the things that go on at night mainly clubnights, bars, bits of celeb stuff and events. While I wa out and about this ‘gentleman’ wandered up and announced, quite closely to one’s face, what I think he believed were the immortal life changing words:
“…you’re a ginger!...”
Well I wasn’t quite sure to make of that, my hair colour hadn’t been commented on for about 25 years previous to that, (further background is I was a ginger kid in the 70s/80s one of the only kids with glasses add in my last name, you can imagine what the bullies made of that!) My main thought after thanking him for his observation leaving him to possibly question his life choices that made him make those, what I’m sure he believed was earth shattering announcement, was I’m not sure I believe this still happens!?!?!
Guess it did, (does it still happen today?) after that I did what I think many would do and decided to strike back using the empowering nature of photography, in this case to photograph fellow Gingas (a term I use incredibly affectionately and from a place of love!) Sorted I’ll do a show of portraits of people who identified ginger, and what shall I call it? Of course I’ll call it:
‘Ginga!’
Name sorted then I needed a place to show it, at the time some good friends ran a bar in the Northern Quarter called 2022 so I cajoled them into letting me use the space (Huge Thankyous still to Keith, Jamie and Steve) I made the work and exhibited it all in the space of a month. I remember wanting a uniform look so white walls, white t-shirts and uniform flash lighting was the order of the day, so 2022NQ was perfect.
Think that was the only restrictions I put on the project so after I secured the venue, I put it out into the world, it picked up quite well via Facebook (still my only pleasant experiences of FB) then the M.E.N picked it up mainly thank you to Sarah for that. Then the enquires started coming in and in the end, I photographed 79 people who all made it into the show. We had the show at the end of January (massive thanks to David for doing most of that too)
Here's some images from the show and that time:
The show was a bit of a blur, but I do remember one young participant encountering one of the tallest participants in the show, they had a little chat which empowered him as he was getting stuff at school because of his hair. Looking back I think that’s possibly one of my greatest achievements, it really shows the power that photography can have.
It was only a short run and a small show, there was a book, which I think you can still order from Blurb. Thinking back to that time there was a lot of similar projects, think it was a whole reaction to the ‘kick a ginger’ theme which ran through America and drifted over here, the ‘kiss a ginger’ day was set up in response to that. There was also an (Italian?) photographer who did incredibly highly stylised ones of ginger men with their tops off, which went down a storm and took some wind from my sails I believe one London ‘paper’ termed it.
As I’ve put this together, didn’t realise it before, but it’s now 10 years old! Should I do a part 2 this year? Don’t really know any venues that show photography anymore so it may be difficult to arrange but I guess I could think about it, depending on what the audiences think? You know my thoughts on ‘nastalgia’ and stuff but possibly this may be exempt from that?
As ever I’ve regaled you with pictures, I’ll leave you with a small quote from one of my readings this week and it’s by Annabelle Pollen in her book Mass Photography – Collective Histories of Everyday Life. And it’s a subject I’ve been thinking about recently, partly in my research practice but increasingly in this one too:
“While ‘amateur’ may appear, by definition, simply the opposite of ‘professional’, the two states have been observed to exist in a dialectical, independent relationship.”
then adds further that
“distinctions in terms of earnings are too crude a measure to be useful.”
Thank you for reading and if you have any comments, thoughts, feedback or anythings then please get me through the usual channels.