in Deference – a collaboration of photography, light & projection.

When time has passed and things have changed. Do you remember that feeling of that time, place, person or feeling or do we
move on? 

“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.” 
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

I am currently working on a collaboration with local artist and educator: Jayne Simpson http://jaynesimpson.co.uk/

Using a film of a shrine I had made for a previous project based on memory and remembrance we set about projecting the film into the concrete space, onto walls of the
vast arch above us, in small nooks dripping with stalactites we
wrapped the projection around pillars and plinths and Claire began photographing this amazing space whilst trying to capture those qualities that were not visible, like the damp stench and the diesel and water on the floor. The atmospheric and narrative based images that Claire
captured led the way to further collaborations and individual work whilst retaining the sentiment of our curatorial idea - Jayne Simpson artist.

'One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it'.

Gaston Bachelard - The Poetics of Space

The projections placed into the space of The Boathouse which 
was due to be filled with concrete had such an ambient feeling and clues to a narrative of its former life.

“When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.”
- But there’s no place like that in this world.
- Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time
 flows past without a break.” 
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Our investigations led us to The Regent a former cinema and bingo
 hall in Blackpool town centre.





A place where dozens of people had passed through shared joy and
 laughter now selling antiques and collectibles on the ground floor
 But above lay a labyrinth of old corridors, staircases and
 balconies with a suggestion of what had gone before. 

In the Spring/Summer we got access to ‘The Regent’ on Church Street Blackpool, now a thriving Antique/Secondhand centre the building had been rescued and given another purpose and gratefully we were 
given access to the upper floors of the building that had once been used as a Theatre but retained some of the original stall and lots of ornate, although crumbling plaster work. We ventured further into the enclosed spaces at the top of the building including the
 original projection room. - Jayne Simpson - Artist.

Following Jayne's residency at Fleetwood Museum and it's recent
 news of loss of funding, I was invited to photograph inside,
investigating its exhibition and space with my camera. I wondered 
how Blackpool Museum could help with their recent good fortune,
 could the exhibits be shared. If Fleetwood Museum was to go, how 
would we remember the rich fishing towns history? https://www.blackpool.gov.uk/Residents/Libraries-arts-and-heritage/Blackpool-Museum.aspx

 As art galleries and museums get closed down. As creativity
 gets removed from education.

  That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is 
the most important of all the lessons of history.

  

To see further work, installation and exhibition.

 
'A rather large dossier of literary documentation on the poetry of houses could be studied from the single angle of the lamp that glows in the window'.

Gaston Bachelard - The Poetics of Space